“I haven’t the faintest idea whether I do or not. How do you do it?”
“Well, you see, I’ll just ask you questions and you answer them, and I’ll put it all down in shorthand, and then when I go to the office I’ll thresh it into shape. You can be sure that I won’t say anything that isn’t pleasant, for I really never admired any one half so much.”
“Very well, you interview me, and then I’ll interview you. I have some questions to ask also.”
“I’ll tell you anything you like. This story, by the way, is to be in the Sunday issue on the Woman’s Page. Now we’ll begin. Were you always an unbeliever? Tell me exactly what are your religious opinions.”
“Oh, dear me! You are not going to write a serious analysis of me?”
“Yes, but I’ll give it the light touch so that it won’t bore anybody. It is to be called ‘A Society Woman Who Thinks,’ and will be read with interest all over America.”
“But I am not a society woman.”
“Well, you’re a swell, and that’s the same thing, for this purpose anyhow. The Gardiner Peeles are out of sight, and I have heard lots of times how beautifully you entertain in summer and how charmingly you gown yourself. Tell me first—what do you think of this everlasting woman question? I hate the very echo of the thing, but we’ll have to touch on it.”
“Oh, I haven’t given much thought to it, except as a phase of current history. One thing is positive, I think: we must adjust our individual lives without reference to any of the problems of the moment,—Womanism, Socialism, the Ethical Question, the Marriage Question, and all the others that are everlasting raging. He that would be happy must deal with the great primal facts of life—and these facts will endure until human nature is no more. Moreover, however much she may reason, nothing can eradicate the strongest instinct in woman—that she can find happiness only through some man.”
“Good,” said Miss Merrien. “I’d have thought the same thing if I’d ever had time. Now tell me if you have any religion at all.”