"A fine woman, a charmin' fine widow-woman," said he, in his rich voice. "But!—business before pleasure, Charles. That's my way, my boy."
However, the ringing motto seemed a little too good to live up to. Hardly had the front door shut on Charles when Judge Blenso—he rather insisted on the official title, now that he was secretary—hooded his old typewriter for the night, turned down the light in the green-domed lamp on the table, and descended to visit his landlady. That he had small reverence for his half-uncle's New Thinking now became clear. The Judge left the Studio (as he himself had christened it), chuckling silently to himself, and on the steps began to chant aloud a sort of gay recitative of his own composition. The chant went a beat to every step, thus: "Cracking—piffle—walnuts—piffle—in a—sort of—piffle—sadness!"
II
The Redmantle Club was more advanced than Charles, and he knew it. And when he told his relative that he was going to it for stimulus, he must have been secretly well aware that it was but a treacherous stimulus he was likely to get.
The Club had been founded by Mrs. Frederick B. Seaman, who had once had a novel published, long ago, at a nominal expense of two hundred and fifty dollars. The name Redmantle had some significance which eludes memory, but there seems to be no doubt that the founder's original idea had been merely to gather together a few congenial persons to abuse the publishers to. The times, however, chanced to be ripe for a broader forum, one where the most advanced women of both sexes could meet and freely speak out the New Mind. The Redmantle had seemed to fill the long-felt want, from the start. Now its meetings began with a Programme, and you may be sure nobody bothered with such small fry as a publisher. The Redmantle speakers won salvos only by completely exterminating the Family and the Home, or proving beyond successful contradiction that Love Is Going Out.
By arriving late on purpose, Charles Garrott missed a speech by Mary Wing on the New Education, for which he was rather sorry. For a year or more he had regarded Miss Wing as one of his best friends, and he always liked to hear her demolish, in characteristically forceful sentences, the surviving tradition that the true object of education is to ornament gentility. He liked to see Mary Wing lay her hand upon her breast, her Self, and cry out: "So long as I live, whatever I do or think or am, the center of the world for me is here. I will not conjugate dead languages or recite the imports of Uruguay, before I learn the first fact about my Self—my body and my mind, my background and my opportunity!" On the other hand, by his late arrival, Charles missed Miss Frothingham's advanced harp-solo, and Professor Clarence Pollock's tribute to a celebrated lady anarchist. As to the elder Miss Hodger's address on the New Ego, he was not much less opportune. Miss Hodger was nearing her peroration as the writing tutor appeared at the door.
He took up a position just inside, and looked through the parlor smoke. The smoke emanated principally from the ladies, who were, however, as five to one. Miss Hodger towered by a baby-grand piano, one hand upon an album, and clamored for her Rights. She demanded these Rights of hers, whatever they were, with such iteration and passion that a kindly, simple person, had there been any such present, must needs have cried out, "Give that lady her Rights there!—and quick about it!"
Miss Hodger's was a tall figure, bony but commanding; she had a flat chest, a tangled mane of sorrel hair and a face somewhat like a horse's. Of her argument, little need be said; you may find it in detail in the very books where Miss Hodger found it. It was, in sum, an unanswerable demonstration of woman's sacred duty of Developing her Ego. The exposé of the Home proved particularly searching; it brought loud cheers. Much Miss Hodger said, too, of the Higher Law and the Richness of Personality, of Contributions to the Race and Enhancement of the Life Stream. In Charles Garrott's ears one sentence seemed to ring and stick above the rest: "Fiercely and relentlessly shall Modern Woman hack away all that impedes her in her Self-Development—all, I care not what it is!"
She ended with a kind of yell, thumped the album twice, and strode away from the baby-grand. There were bursts of clapping, a chorus of approval, and then general buzzing and commotion. The Programme was over. Everybody was standing: all talking, nobody left to listen. Servants entered bearing trays of light refreshments; light, indeed, they looked. It was the Redmantle's social hour, the hour of good, free, courageous talk.