"You forget Winchie," said her mother, and her tone was gentle.
"No, I thought of that excuse. But I was ashamed to speak it. It seemed like hypocrisy. Of course, I've got to go back for his sake. But if I hadn't him I'd go back just the same. Mother, you ought to have had me educated more or else less. If I knew less I could be content with the sort of life women used to think was the summit of earthly bliss. If I knew more I could make my own life. I could be independent. I begin to understand why women are restless nowadays. We're neither the one thing nor the other."
Up to a certain point Mrs. Benedict could understand her daughter, could sympathize. She could even have supplemented Courtney's forebodings as to the future with drearier actualities of experience. But beyond that point the two women were hopelessly apart. "You are warring with God," she rebuked. "He has ordained woman's position." And to her mind that settled everything.
"It isn't God," replied Courtney. "It's just ignorance."
"It is God," declared her mother, in the fanatic tone that told Courtney her mind was closed.
The mother and daughter belonged to two different generations—the two that are perhaps further apart than any two in all human history. Courtney saw how far apart she and her mother were, thought she understood why her mother could sympathize with her restlessness in woman's ancient bondage, but could only say "sacrilege" when the younger and better educated woman went on from vague restlessness to open revolt.
"God has seen fit to make the lot of woman hard," said the mother.
"If that is God," cried the daughter, "then the less said about Him the better."
"Courtney, your sinful heart will bring you to grief."
"Is it a sin to think?"