"My work has justified itself, Marvel. I am not boasting when I say that I truthfully believe the good day of release from servitude is nearer for all women because I had the courage to leave my home and go into the wilderness, preaching the coming of the Woman's Age and furthering, even though feebly, all the good causes that will help it on."
Marvel still kept silence. She knew so many things to say! Was it not better to utter none of them?
{197}
"I wanted," continued Clarissa, "to give my mite toward making this a better world for girl-babies like you to be born into."
Her face wore the deep, wistful look that marked her highest moments; this was the reason upon which in her secret soul she relied for justification--but her daughter was not touched by it at all!
"Well, Marvel?"
"Really, mother," said the girl crisply, driven to make answer, "don't you realize that you would never have gone in for Humanity if you had n't hated cooking?"
"Why cook when I hated it?" Clarissa, up-in-arms, flashed back.
"Why, indeed?--but why drag in Humanity? And why should I give up my work to stay here? I felt I ought to come--for a while--when you {198} asked it. I could see that father and Evelyn thought I ought. But now that I have put the flat in shape and trained Myra Ann,--she wants to stay with you, by the way,--things will run smoothly. I can come up occasionally to see how it goes."
At this assumption that her need of her child was purely practical, something, some tangible, iron thing, seemed to strike Clarissa's heart. She could feel its impact, feel the distressful shudder along all her nerves, the explosion in her palms. She looked down at them curiously. It almost seemed to her that she would behold them shattered by the pain!