“Has he told you?”
“He didn’t tell me why a busy man like Meyer should stop to think of me.”
“Do you think men never help women?”
“Yes, when they see some advantage for themselves.” And then dark histories. The general effect of her experience, the sum total of that knowledge she had brought out of commerce with men, and which was always ready to rise up and menace her—it seemed almost incredible to the sheltered woman. But it was not all narrow, personal repining. Mrs. Locke had theories. She had lived once in a state where women voted. She told stories of going to the polls. In spite of the opposition of male politicians she had once herself held office.
“Well, how did you like being a notary public?”
“I hated it, but it taught me things.”
“Unless my life’s a failure,” she said, with an unconscious loftiness, “I don’t expect to have time to bother about politics.”
“You’d feel differently if you didn’t belong to the privileged class.”
“Oh, but I don’t. I belong to quite plain people. And we’ve been very poor.”