"Are you speaking," asked Hagar Ashendyne, "of the Suffrage Movement?"
They were back in the drawing-room, all gathered more or less closely around a light fire upon the hearth, kindled for the comfort of Americans who always found England "so cold." It softened and brightened all the room, quaint and old-fashioned, where, for a hundred years, distinguished quiet people had come and gone.
"Yes," said the older woman. "Are you interested?"
"Yes, of course—"
She had not spoken much at dinner, but had sat, a pearl of listeners, deep, soft eyes upon each discourser in turn. There was in the minds of all an interest and curiosity regarding her. Her work was very good. She had personality to an extraordinary degree.
Now she spoke in a voice that had a little of the Ashendyne golden drawl. "I have been—in the last eight years—oh, all over! Europe, yes; but more especially, it seems to me, looking back, the Orient. Egypt, all North Africa, Turkey and Persia, Japan and India. Yes, and Europe, too; Greece and Italy and Spain, the mid-Continent and the North. Around the world—a little of Spanish America, a little of the Islands. Sometimes long in one place, sometimes only a few days.... Everywhere it was always the same.... The Social Organism with a shrivelled side."
The writer of plays was in a mood to take issue with his every deepest conviction; also to say banal things. "But aren't American women the freest in the world?"
Hagar Ashendyne did not answer. She sat in a deep armchair, her elbow upon the arm, her chin in her hand, her eyes dreaming upon the fire....
But Christopher entered the lists. "'Freest'—'freest'! Yes, perhaps they are. The Italian woman is freer than the Oriental woman, and the German woman is freer than the Italian, and the English woman is freer than the German, and the American is freer than the English! But what have they to do with 'freer' and 'freest'? It is a question of being free!"
"Free politically?"