“If I do that I can’t remind you that I’m a man and it might be I’d like you to think of that.”
It was very light. Their tones were the perfectly controlled tones of those who have emotions thoroughly in check. But the note of seriousness was there and they were both too wise to pretend that it wasn’t.
“I’m quite ready to go,” said Margaret.
He helped her with her cloak and they went down the stairway. Once in the car, with Margaret bundled in robes he turned to the boulevards and they fell into talk again. They liked to talk to each other. They elucidated things between them. They liked the calmness of each other’s reactions, the sense of mutual control they had as they held a subject poised on their reflections, as they explored the sensitive delicacy of some thought. Politics, people, books—but always their talk strayed back to men and women. As if in that kind of talk they got most pleasure from each other, as if the subject were inexhaustible.
Walter had told Margaret a great deal about himself and she had listened with interest. Then little by little under that cloak of the impersonal she had told him something of herself, her interest in women. “Not that I idealize them. I don’t. But they are far more interesting than any work—their problems are the biggest in the world.”
“Are you looking for still further concessions?”
“You mustn’t use that word. We’re looking for the truth in the situation. You think because we vote that the game’s up, don’t you? It’s not. If women are ever going to be—women, Mr. Carpenter, they’ve got to develop all the qualities they’ve been letting rot and decay for hundreds of years. A few women have preserved the strength all women should have. But most of them—Do you dream that most of them have an idea of doing any real work—want any real work? Do you think they’re going to give up their security of support without a struggle? They don’t want independence in the majority of cases. They want certain rules relaxed for their convenience. But do you think that basically they want to give up their claim developed through ages as a ‘weaker sex’?”
She stopped, at the little smile in his eyes. “You think I’m as oratorical as Mrs. Thorstad, don’t you?”
“I do not, but I was thinking that it was time we had some dinner.”
They stopped at one of the hotels and maneuvered their way through a crowded, ornate dining-room to a little table on the side of the room, Walter bowing gravely to a great many people as they went along.