But here she was at her own door. There was just time to be ready for the Mothers; none in which to telephone to Dexter, or buy up the whole edition of the "Looker-on" (fantastic vision!), or try and get hold of its editor, who had once dined with her, and was rather a friend of Lita's. All these possibilities and impossibilities raced through her brain to the maddening tune of "too late" while she slipped off her street-dress and sat twitching with impatience under the maid's readjustment of her ruffled head. The gown prepared for the meeting, rich, matronly and just the least bit old-fashioned—very different from the one designed for the Birth Control committee—lay spread out beside the copy of her speech, and Maisie Bruss, who had been hovering within call, dashed back breathless from a peep over the stairs.
"They're arriving—"
"Oh, Maisie, rush down! Say I'm telephoning—"
Her incurable sincerity made her unhook the receiver and call out Manford's office number. Almost instantly she heard him. "Dexter, this Mahatma investigation must be stopped! Don't ask me why—there isn't time. Only promise—"
She heard his impatient laugh.
"No?"
"Impossible," came back.
She supposed she had hung up the receiver, fastened on her jewelled "Motherhood" badge, slipped on rings and bracelets as usual. But she remembered nothing clearly until she found herself on the platform at the end of the packed ball-room, looking across rows and rows of earnest confiding faces, with lips and eyes prepared for the admiring reception of her "message." She was considered a very good speaker: she knew how to reach the type of woman represented by this imposing assemblage—delegates from small towns all over the country, united by a common faith in the infinite extent of human benevolence and the incalculable resources of American hygiene. Something of the moral simplicity of her own bringing-up brought her close to these women, who had flocked to the great perfidious city serenely unaware of its being anything more, or other, than the gigantic setting of a Mothers' Meeting. Pauline, at such times, saw the world through their eyes, and was animated by a genuine ardour for the cause of motherhood and domesticity.
As she turned toward her audience a factitious serenity descended on her. She felt in control of herself and of the situation. She spoke.
"Personality—first and last, and at all costs. I've begun my talk to you with that one word because it seems to me to sum up our whole case. Personality—room to develop in: not only elbow-room but body-room and soul-room, and plenty of both. That's what every human being has a right to. No more effaced wives, no more drudging mothers, no more human slaves crushed by the eternal round of housekeeping and child-bearing—"