Jane hesitated—dared. "To be quite frank," said she, "I worship success and I despise failure. Success means strength. Failure means weakness—and I abominate weakness."
He looked quietly disapproving. "You don't mean that. You don't understand what you're saying."
"Perfectly," she assured him. "I'm not a bit good. Education has taken all the namby-pamby nonsense out of me."
But he was not really hearing; besides, what had women to do with the realities of life? They were made to be the property of men—that was the truth, though he would never have confessed it to any woman. They were made to be possessed. "And I must possess this woman," he thought, his blood running hot. He said:
"Why not help me to make a career? I can do it, Jen, with you to help."
She had thought of this before—of making a career for herself, of doing the "something" her intense energy craved, through a man. The "something" must be big if it were to satisfy her; and what that was big could a woman do except through a man? But—this man. Her eyes turned thoughtfully upon him—a look that encouraged him to go on:
"Politics interest you, Jen. I've seen that in the way you listen and in the questions you ask."
She smiled—but not at the surface. In fact, his political talk had bored her. She knew nothing about the subject, and, so, had been as one listening to an unknown language. But, like all women, having only the narrowest range of interests herself and the things that would enable her to show off to advantage, she was used to being bored by the conversational efforts of men and to concealing her boredom. She had listened patiently and had led the conversation by slow, imperceptible stages round to the interesting personal—to the struggle for dominion over this difficult male.
"Anyhow," he went on, "no intelligent person could fail to be interested in politics, once he or she appreciated what it meant. And people of our class owe it to society to take part in politics. Victor Dorn is a crank, but he's right about some things—and he's right in saying that we of the upper class are parasites upon the masses. They earn all the wealth, and we take a large part of it away from them. And it's plain stealing unless we give some service in return. For instance, you and I—what have we done, what are we doing that entitles us to draw so much? Somebody must earn by hard labor all that is produced. We are not earning. So"—he was looking handsome now in his manly earnestness—"Jen, it's up to us to do our share—to stop stealing—isn't it?"
She was genuinely interested. "I hadn't thought of these things," said she.