Peter longed to dispute this, but he could not in honesty.
“She’s a suffragist.”
“She’s so lukewarm she might just as well be an anti. She’s naturally reactionary. Women like that aren’t much use. They drag us back like so much dead weight.”
“I suppose Eleanor has been a disappointment to you,” Peter mused, “but she tries pretty hard to be all things to all parents, Beulah. You’ll find she won’t fail you if you need her.”
“I shan’t need her,” Beulah said, prophetically. “I hoped she’d stand beside me in the work, but she’s not that kind. She’ll marry early and have a family, and that will be the end of her.”
“I wonder if she will,” Peter said, “I hope so. 229 She still seems such a child to me. I believe in marriage, Beulah, don’t you?”
Her answer surprised him.
“Under certain conditions, I do. I made a vow once that I would never marry and I’ve always believed that it would be hampering and limiting to a woman, but now I see that the fight has got to go on. If there are going to be women to carry on the fight they will have to be born of the women who are fighting to-day.”
“Thank God,” Peter said devoutly. “It doesn’t make any difference why you believe it, if you do believe it.”
“It makes all the difference,” Beulah said, but her voice softened. “What I believe is more to me than anything else in the world, Peter.”