"I have told her that she may live with us by and by," said Gertrude to Seldon Avery one afternoon; "but that is no solution of the problem. And besides it is her father's duty to care for her and to do it without hurting the child's feelings, too. Can't you go to him and have a talk with him? You say he seems a kind-hearted, well-meaning, easily-led man. Beside, he has no right to blame her. He has done more than any one else in this state to make the path of the cashier easy and smooth. If it were not for poor little Ettie I should be heartily glad of it all—of the lesson for him. Can't you go to him and to that Mr. King and make them see the infamy of their work, and force them to undo it? Can't you? Is there no way?"
Avery had gone. He argued in vain. "Why do you blame the cashier," he had said to Berton. "He has committed no legal offence. Our laws say he has done no wrong. Then why blame him? Why blame Ettie? She is a mere yielding, impulsive child, and, surely, if he has done no wrong she has not. If—"
"Now look a-here, Mr. Avery," said John Berton, hotly, "I know what you're a-hittin' at an' you can jest save your breath. I didn't help pass that law t' apply to my girl, n' you know it damned well. I ain't in no mood just now t' have you throw it up to me that she was about the first one it ketched, neather. How was I a-goin' to know that? That there bill wasn't intended t' apply t' my girl, I tell you. An' then she hadn't ought to a said she went with him willin'ly, either. If she hadn't a said that we could a peppered him, but as it is he's all right, an—"
"That is what the law contemplates, isn't it?—for other girls, of course, not for yours," began Avery, whose natural impulses of kindness and generosity he was holding back.
"Now you hold on!" exclaimed Berton, feebly groping about for a reply. "You know I never got up that bill. You know mighty well the man that got it up an' come there an' lobbied for it, was one o' your own kind—a silk stocking.
"You know I only started it 'n' sort o' fathered it for him. I ain't no more to blame than the others. Go 'n talk t' them. I've had my dose. Go 'n talk t' King. He says yet that it's a mighty good bill—but I ain't so damned certain as I was. It don't look 's reasonable t' me's it did last session." Avery left him, in the hope that a little later on he would conclude that his present attitude toward his daughter might undergo like modification, with advantage to all concerned. It was early in the evening, and Avery concluded to step into a workingman's club on his way to his lodgings. He had no sooner entered the door, than someone recognized him as the candidate of a year ago. There was an immediate demand that he give them a speech. He had had no thought of speaking, but the opening tempted him, and the hand clapping was indent. The chairman introduced him as "the only kid-glove member in the last Legislature who didn't sell his soul, to monopoly, and put a mortgage on his heavenly home at the behest of Wall Street."
The applause which met this sally was long sustained, and the laughter, while hearty, was not altogether pleasant of tone. Avery stood until there was silence. Then he began with a quiet smile.
"Mr. Chairman and gentlemen." He paused, and looked over the room again. "I beg your pardon. I am accustomed to face men only. Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen." There was a ripple of laughter over the room. "Let me say how glad I am to make that amendment, and how glad I shall be, for one, when I am able to make it in the body to which I have the honor to belong—the Legislature." Some one said: "ah, there," but he did not pause. "You labor men have taken the right view of it in this club. There is not a question, not one, in all the domain of labor or legislation which does not strike at woman's welfare as vitally as it does at man's; not one." There was feeble applause. "But I will go further. I will say, there is not only not an economic question which is not as vital to her, but it is far more vital than it is to man. The very fact of her present legal status rests upon the other awful fact of her absolute financial dependence upon men." Someone laughed, and Avery fired up. "This one fact has made sex maniacs of men, and peopled this world with criminals, lunatics, and liars! This one fact! This one fact!"
His intensity had at last forced silence, and quieted those members who were at first inclined to take as a gallant joke his opening remarks. "Let me take a text, for what I want to say to you on the economic question, from the Bible.
"Oh, give us a rest!"