"What business has he to worry you with his dirty political work? I infer from what he says that it is a bill that I've only heard mentioned once or twice. The sort of thing they do in secret sessions and keep from the newspapers in the main. That is, they are only barely named in the paper and under a number or heading which people don't understand. I'm disgusted with Avery—perfectly!" Gertrude was surprised, but with that ignorance and absolute sincerity of youth, she appealed to her mother.
"Mamma, do you see any reason why, from that letter, papa should be vexed with Mr. Avery? It seemed to me to have just the right tone; but I am sorry he did not tell me just what the bill is."
"You let me catch him telling you, if it's what I think it is," retorted her father, rather hotly. "It's not fit for your ears. Good women have no business with such knowledge and—"
Mrs. Foster held up a warning finger to her daughter, but the girl had not been convinced.
"Don't good men know such things, papa? Don't such bills deal with people in a way which will touch women, too? I can't see why you put it that way. If a bill is to be passed into a law, and it is of so vile a nature as you say and as this letter indicates, in whose interest is it to be silent or ignorant? Do you want such a bill passed? Would mamma or I?"
Her father laughed, and rose from the table. "It is in the interest of nothing good. No, I should say if you or your mother, or any other respectable mother at all, were in the Legislature, no such bill would have a ghost of a chance; but—"
Gertrude's eyes were fixed upon her father. They were very wide open and perplexed.
"Then it can be only in the interest of the vilest and lowest of the race that good men keep silent, and prefer to have good women ignorant and helpless in such—" she began; but her father turned at the door and said, nervously and almost sharply, "Gertrude, if Avery has no more sense than to start you thinking about such things, I advise you to cut his acquaintance. Such topics are not fit for women; I am perfectly disgusted with—"
As he was passing out of the dining-room, John Martin entered the street door and faced him. "Hello, Martin! Glad to see you! The ladies are still at luncheon; won't you come right in here and join them in a cup of chocolate?"
He was heartily glad of the interruption, and felt that it was very timely indeed that Mr. Martin had dropped in.