THE ADVANCED WOMAN OF THE PERIOD.
"'You go for the emancipation of woman; but bless you, boy, you haven't the least idea what it means—not a bit of it, sonny, have you now? Confess?' she said, stroking my shoulder caressingly."
"Not the honor of my acquaintance, you was going to say; well, that's exactly what you're getting now. I read your piece in the Milky Way, and, said I, that boy's in heathen darkness yet, and I'm going round to enlighten him. You mean well, Hal! but this is a great subject. You haven't seen through it. Lord bless you, child! you ain't a woman, and I am—that's just the difference."
Now, I ask any of my readers, what is a modest young man, in this nineteenth century,—having been brought up to adore and reverence woman as a goddess—to do, when he finds himself suddenly vis-à-vis with her, in such embarrassing relations as mine were becoming? I had heard before of Miss Audacia Dangyereyes, as a somewhat noted character in New York circles, but did not expect to be brought so unceremoniously, and without the least preparation of mind, into such very intimate relations with her.
"Now, look here, bub!" she said, "I'm just a-going to prove to you, in five minutes, that you've been writing about what you don't know anything about. You've been asserting, in your blind way, the rights of woman to liberty and equality; the rights of women, in short, to do anything that men do. Well, here comes a woman to your room who takes her rights, practically, and does just what a man would do. I claim my right to smoke, if I please, and to drink if I please; and to come up into your room and make you a call, and have a good time with you, if I please, and tell you that I like your looks, as I do. Furthermore, to invite you to come and call on me at my room. Here's my card. You may call me 'Dacia, if you like—I don't go on ceremony. Come round and take a smoke with me, this evening, won't you? I've got the nicest little chamber that ever you saw. What rent do you pay for yours? Say, will you come round?"
"Indeed—thank you, miss—"
"Call me 'Dacia for short. I don't stand on ceremony. Just look on me as another fellow. And now confess that you've been tied and fettered by those vapid conventionalities which bind down women till there is no strength in 'em. You visit in those false, artificial circles, where women are slaves, kept like canary birds in gilded cages. And you are afraid of your own principles when you see them carried out in a real free woman. Now, I'm a woman that not only dares say, but I dare do. Why hasn't a woman as much a right to go round and make herself agreeable to men, as to sit still at home and wait for men to come and make themselves agreeable to her? I know you don't like this, I can see you don't, but it's only because you are a slave to old prejudices. But I'm going to make you like me in spite of yourself. Come, now, be consistent with your principles; allow me my equality as a woman, a human being."
I was in such a state of blank amazement by this time as seemed to deprive me of all power of self-possession. At this moment the door opened, and Jim Fellows appeared. A most ludicrous grimace passed over his face as he saw the position and he cut a silent pirouette in the air, behind her. She turned her head, and he advanced.
"Fairest of the sex! (with some slight exceptions)—to what happy accident are we to attribute this meeting?"