“I’m not a campaign speaker, Helen. I’m an organizer. Of course I think I’d rather have the Republicans in than the Democrats for certain obvious reasons but if you mean that I think the Republican candidate will be a Messiah—I don’t. Gage is a Republican—how about you?”
“Half Republican—half Socialist.”
“The extent of your Socialism is probably a subscription to a couple of magazines.”
“About.”
“You ought to focus on something, I think.”
“Go on. It does me good. After years of hearing mouthing nonsense,” Helen spoke with sudden heat, “of hearing people say ‘How wonderful you are, Mrs. Flandon’ and ‘How do you manage to do so much, Mrs. Flandon?’ and all sorts of blithering compliments, it’s wonderful to listen to you. Though I’m not sure I could focus if I wanted to—at least for any definite period. I do, for a while, and then I swing back to being very desperately married or extremely interested in something else. You can’t put Gage in a corner like some husbands, you know, Margaret.”
“I should imagine not.”
“Suppose,” said Mrs. Brownley, coming up to them, now that her other guests were disposed of, “that we have a little talk while the others are busy and plan our work a little. You don’t really mean to carry Miss Duffield off, do you, Helen?”
“I must, Mrs. Brownley. I’ve been trying for years to get this young woman to visit me and, now that she is in the city, I couldn’t let her stay with any one else. I didn’t have any idea that she was going to be the organizer sent by the Women’s Republican Committee.”
“I wouldn’t have been sent either, if Mrs. Thompson hadn’t been dreadfully short of workers. But she was, and I know her very well and though she knows I only go with her part way, I promised to do the best I could to organize things for her and get the women interested, even if I couldn’t speak in behalf of the party and its candidates. You see, Mrs. Brownley, we’ve done so much organization for suffrage work among women that it comes pretty naturally to us to do this other work, just as it does to you.”