"No wonder we are slaves; we've swallowed that lie since Adam. Well, there'll be none of it in mine!" she said. What was going to be in "hers"? Business, to begin with. She was going to make a success of her business. Her books had shown a better month—they should show a still better month, if she wore her shoes out walking about town to please clients! Yes, Success! It was not a personal ambition: there was no self-seeking in Fred Payton; she wanted to succeed because her success would show what women could do; show that a woman was as able as a man—as wise, as good ("better! better!" she told herself); show that a woman could rule, could achieve, could be "the head of the family"! The thing that was to be "in hers" was work to free women from the shackles of the old ideals, from content in sex slavery, with all its ignorances and futilities, its slackness of purpose and shameful timidities, that a man-made world had called "duties." And Howard, who was not "afraid of clever women," would help her! A passion of consecration to the woman's cause rose in her heart like a wave. For the next hour she walked up and down the dimly lighted room, planning what she was going to do for women.
It was nearly twelve when Miss Carter's ponderous step told her she was free. She laughed good-naturedly at the thanks the refreshed woman was eager to give, but just as she was leaving the room Miss Carter's last word caught her ear:
"I've had such a pleasant time, Miss Freddy. I'll do my work better for it."
'Do her work better.'... In her eagerness to do her own work Fred had never thought very much of other people's; but what a different world it would be if everybody did their work better! "If every woman did her best on her job, even if it were only taking care of Mortimores, it would help things along," she told herself. "It's slackness on the job that holds the world back." Looked at from that angle, then—the bettering of Miss Carter's work—perhaps it did count to make things pleasant at Payton Street? The idea put a new light on Mr. Weston's call-down. Bearing other people's burdens had seemed not in the least worth while; but if cheering people up helped them to do their work—work which, after all, had to be done, somehow!—why, then there was sense in it. She saw no sense in "cheering" her mother, for her mother did nothing at all. Frederica had no dutiful illusions; Mrs. Payton was an absolutely useless human being—and her daughter was perfectly aware of it. "She has no burden to bear," Fred thought, carelessly. "But to give old fat Carter a hand by just amusing her,—that helps the doing of work; and that counts! I'll come in oftener," she decided.
So, in her own fashion, by a back door, so to speak, Frederica Payton entered into the old idea of Duty.
CHAPTER XIV
Fred was eager to impart to her man of business her wonderful discovery that visits to Payton Street should be made, not because of "duty," but because they were of value to the world.
"Your premises were wrong, but your deductions were correct," she instructed him, and he roared with laughter.