MRS. BROWN. Dear me, and now you are keeping up the traditions of your family by taking part in this live issue of the day—Woman Suffrage. Do come over to the sofa, Mr. Van Tousel, and tell me all about your sister. It is so long since I have seen her. (They walk over to sofa and sit down conversing.)
MR. BECKER. Have you known Mr. Van Foolsel a long time, Miss Tilsbury?
MILDRED. Van Tousel! Mr. Becker, not Van Foolsel!
MR. BECKER. I beg his pardon, but a man like that gets on my nerves. He isn’t willing to do a man’s work in the world and so he approves of women’s going out of the home and working instead. If I should marry, I would want to take care of my wife and not let her take care of me. Don’t you think that is the right spirit, Miss Tilsbury?
MILDRED. A woman doesn’t like to sit around idle, Mr. Becker.
MR. BECKER. Certainly not, but no woman need ever be idle. She has her housekeeping, her children, her friends, her charities, books to read, and plays to see. I only wish that I could command my time as a woman can do, but I have to work.
MILDRED. Don’t you like to work?
MR. BECKER. Yes, but sometimes I wish I could set my clients to work instead. They go to Europe and I stay at home to attend to their affairs. Sometime or other, I hope to go to Europe and leave my clients at home to attend to their own business. I wouldn’t want to go alone though, it would be too lonesome. I shall wait until I am married.
MILDRED. Will that be soon?
MR. BECKER. I hope so, unless women become voters and vote to abolish matrimony.