"It's the male end of the bargain, if you choose to put it that way, to give a woman love and respect and comradeship, a clean, strong, healthy body and mind and soul, to be the kind of man she would like the father of her children to be. I believe that is about all. Read Beatrice Forbes-Robinson Hale's chapter on the 'New Man' and you'll understand why Sylvia's money has nothing to do with the case and why your pride is stupid and conceited and old-fashioned, a relic of the time when man expected to be the sole provider and expected his wife to be the chief parasite of the family, when he gloried in his high and mighty superiority and expected her to be meekly grateful and appreciative of said superiority. Now, do you understand?"
"A little," said Phil Lorrimer slowly. "Thank you, Barb. Maybe I have been an idiot, as you say. It takes you to clear away the rubbish in a fellow's mind. Jack tried to tell me the same thing and, well, I guess Sylvia tried, too, only she didn't put it as violently visibly as you have, and I threw the words back in her face like the donkey I am. Barb, do you believe there is any chance she'll forgive me?" he begged anxiously.
"I don't know how much she has to forgive," retorted Barb shortly. "But you had better be about it before her forgiveness is all she has left to give. You can't expect a girl like Sylvia to sit down and wait for a man to get his eyes open like a Maltese kitten. I suppose you know Jack is hot on the trail, and no doubt there are plenty of others here in New York."
"Lord! Don't I know it?" Phil got to his feet. "You needn't rub it in, Barb. I'm scared enough on that score already and jealous as the old one. I'd have liked to drop asphyxiating gas on the moon-faced calf I saw with her last night at the opera, looking as if he owned her. Gee! I've got to get out and let the air circulate through my brains a little. I feel as if I had a hot box up there." He gave his tawny head a thump. "Honest, Barb, I'm much obliged to you for your efficiently brutal treatment. You are some doctor, all right."
And in his genuine gratitude Phil started to seize both Barb's small hands in his, but she backed away, fearful perhaps lest he see more than she wanted, now that his eyes were unsealed in other respects. In a moment he was gone and Barb walked deliberately over to the mirror and surveyed her flushed face and big, excited eyes.
"They say a critic is a man who can't write. I begin to think a reformer--at least, a woman reformer--is a woman who can't have what she wants. Maybe I can get the sacred fire after all. Wonder if Aunt Jo got it--my way."
Barb laughed a little tremulously and then picked up a volume of Ellen Key and sat down to read as hard as she could.
Her brain was very clear that night it seemed. She felt as if she could have written a book about woman herself.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE CAUSE AND THE CAREER