"But we are not gods," he shook his head, sadly.
"Only the men are?"
"That is new-womanish talk," he frowned. "Equal rights, the ballot, and all that."
"Oh! Don't!" she protested. "You won't understand me; you can't. I am no woman's rights' creature; and I stand, not for the new woman, but for the new womanhood. Because I am sincere; because I desire to be natural, and honest, and true; and because I am consistent with myself, you choose to misunderstand it all and to lay wrong strictures upon me. I do try to be consistent, and I think I fairly succeed; but you can see neither rhyme nor reason in my consistency. Perhaps it is because you are unused to consistent, natural women; because, more likely, you are only familiar with the hot-house breeds,—pretty, helpless, well-rounded, stall-fatted little things, blissfully innocent and criminally ignorant. They are not natural or strong; nor can they mother the natural and strong."
She stopped abruptly. They heard somebody enter the hall, and a heavy, soft-moccasined tread approaching.
"We are friends," she added hurriedly, and Corliss answered with his eyes.
"Ain't intrudin', am I?" Dave Harney grinned broad insinuation and looked about ponderously before coming up to shake hands.
"Not at all," Corliss answered. "We've bored each other till we were pining for some one to come along. If you hadn't, we would soon have been quarrelling, wouldn't we, Miss Welse?"
"I don't think he states the situation fairly," she smiled back. "In fact, we had already begun to quarrel."
"You do look a mite flustered," Harney criticised, dropping his loose-jointed frame all over the pillows of the lounging couch.