"Frank, you are incorrigible," said his sister. "If Miss Holland knew what a flighty, inconsequent infant you are, she wouldn't waste a thought on you, let alone a whole evening. What makes you want to go, anyhow?"
"What's the use of her wasting thoughts on a solemn dub like our brother?" he demanded aggrievedly. "What business has he trailing the soap-boxing suffragers around when he is about to take upon himself vows to cleave only to the daughter of a militant 'Anti' leader, some time when he can jar himself loose from his professional cares long enough for a honeymoon?"
"I'm afraid, Jack, you will find your prospective mother-in-law quite as strenuous as the most ardent of the suffragists," said his sister. "I haven't gone into this thing at all, I haven't time, but it is certainly amusing to watch the 'Antis' outdo even the most ardent suffragettes by way of proving their contention that woman's sphere is home. If they were consistent, they would never appear in public——"
"Except by 'Now comes the counsel for the defendant,'" interrupted Frank, "but they never are. There is a little bunch of them in Colorado who have failed to command the same attention in politics that their money imposes upon the social world, so they rush into type and get themselves interviewed and asked to speak when they come East, all by way of proving their sensitive and shrinking nature. I don't agree with the suffragists, not a little bit, but I can fraternize with them; they are sincere, but none of the 'Antis' for me; never saw one yet who wasn't either a snob or so narrow-minded that a toothpick would look like the Brooklyn Bridge by comparison."
"Hear, hear!" cried Jack. "Miss Holland has certainly made an impression upon you; not that I see what difference it makes, since women already vote where you hail from."
"That just goes to show how foolish a smart man can be," replied his brother cheerfully. "You think because you may have a vote on the enfranchisement of women that it is very important what you think, but is it? Not at all. But with me it is different. I've paid office rent in Denver for two years, and spent a third of the time here or in Washington. I've looked in on two State conventions, and forgot to register at the last election, but because I come from Colorado I am considered an authority on woman suffrage, and when I say it's no good, and swell out my chest and look gloomy, it has great weight, great weight!" He leaned back in his chair and gave way to unseemly mirth as he recalled some occasion on which he had evidently hoaxed some trusting reporter.
"Nonsense, Frank," his brother-in-law answered. "I don't believe you know the first thing about politics or suffrage, or what the women have done or haven't done."
"There you wrong me," the young man answered gravely. "The first thing to know in politics is when to come into the game and when to keep out. Personally, I can't make my firm believe that it is cheaper to buy the other fellows' men after they are elected than it is to try to elect our own, and have them raise the ante on us, but they'll come to it after a while. As to the women, bless you, voting doesn't change their nature, and so long as women are willing to believe what men tell them, it's mighty unsafe to trust them with the ballot. Before you know it, they'll find us out, and then you'll see the first result of the suffragist dream of heaven on earth—there'll be no more marrying or giving in marriage. Oh, I'm dead against it!"
They all joined in the laughter that followed this sally, and Hilda said thoughtfully, "If you boys are intent on this meeting, I'll hurry dinner, for they probably begin early." As she rose to go, Frank caught her hand with the piteous entreaty, "Oh, please make my big brother take his marbles and go home. He wasn't asked to this party. Miss Holland didn't say a thing to him. I don't see why he has to have first show with all the pretty girls in New York!"
"When Miss Holland knows you, and all your native charm, she will never smile again upon your older brother," laughed his sister, "but in the meantime I suppose it's an open meeting, and we can't prevent his going. But don't worry; his fatal beauty will but serve as a foil to your more sparkling type. Besides, with your vivid imagination, unhampered by a slavish subserviency to facts, you should be able to furnish canards that will occupy all Miss Holland's time for a month."