"I am certain," she said, emphasizing each word, "that I do not want you to see her again."
"Let me understand you, Leonora, dear. There are many prominent New York women in this suffrage movement. Some of my very best old-time friends, I am informed, are participating in it. Is it your desire that I shall cut their acquaintance also, or is it just Miss Holland you want me never to see again?"
"Now, don't think I am jealous of her, for I am not. She is the most conspicuous one in this suffrage movement on account of the awful things she does, but I don't care to associate with any person who is identified with this crusade. Neither does my mother, nor any of our social set, and of course I would like you to feel the same way."
"But suppose I do not feel that way. Suppose my sympathies are with them and my profession as well as my political predilections should carry me among them?" he asked earnestly.
"Oh, Jack, what has come over you that you are so plebeian! Can't you see how these women are cheapening New York society, associating with workingmen and shop girls!"
"But that is what they should do in a democracy, and I am sure I never saw better-looking women in my life than these same busy suffragists. They have something to do, and are not dying of ennui or listlessness," he answered.
"Their stock argument," she answered, "but whoever heard of an aristocracy based on such things as these women engage in. Promise me, Jack, that you will have nothing to do with any of them."
"You are unduly wrought up to-night," he answered, "but I will promise you that I shall do nothing to cause you unnecessary annoyance. You must not be too captious, dear, and remember that I go Thursday night."
She started to protest, but he drowned the effort in a shower of caresses and bade her goodnight. Each of them, in the silence of their own apartments, thought long and earnestly of this interview. Leonora Kimball had been taught to believe that the chief badges of an aristocracy were complete idleness of the women, and the possession of enough wealth to support such idleness. It mattered not how mentally insipid or morally opaque or physically inane such women might be, the true test of being fitted for the purple was whether or not they had ever done any useful work, and whether or not they had money enough so that the other members of their set might feel assured that they never would do any useful work. An aristocracy of trained brains or unselfish culture were meaningless terms to her.
But this night she was greatly disturbed over the attitude of the man she was to marry. She had been quite honest with him when she asserted that jealousy was foreign to her nature; affection did not run deep enough with her to strike its eternal renewing fountain—jealousy. The practical character with which she had been endowed easily enough conducted affairs of the heart along paths directed by the head, and while her professions of love were quite sincere and her loyalty beyond question, yet she had not the remotest idea of the grand passion. She knew that she was very fond of John Earl; that he was worthy of her; that he could sustain her manner of life and that his social standing was all that either she or her mother could desire. She also knew that she did not wish to lose him, and much as she abhorred the suffragists, she determined to be lenient with his present mood, certain she could change it ere long, else of what avail was the all-powerful "silent influence" upon which the Anti-Suffragists laid so much stress?