Mrs. LeGrand, as the principal of a School for Young Ladies, always recognized her responsibility to truth. She stood up for veracity. "Dear Mrs. Ashendyne, it is not just like that now. There are a great many more suffragists now—so many that society has agreed not to ostracize them. Some of them are pretty and dress well and have a good position. I was at a tea in Baltimore and there were several there. I've even heard women in Virginia—women that you'd think ought to know better—say that they believed in it and that sooner or later we'd have a movement here. Of course, you don't hear that kind of talk, but I can assure you there's a good deal of it. Of course, I myself think it is perfectly dreadful. Woman's place is the home. And we can surely trust everything to the chivalry of our Southern men. I am sure Hagar has only to think a little—The whole thing seems to me so—so—so vulgar!"
Miss Serena broke out passionately. "It's against the Bible! I don't see how any religious woman—"
Hagar, who had gone back to her chair, turned her eyes toward Captain Bob.
"Confound it, Gipsy! What do you want to put your feet on the table and smoke cigars for?"
Hagar looked at Ralph.
He was gazing at her with eyes that were burning and yet sullen and angry. "Women, I suppose, have got to have follies and fads to amuse themselves with. At any rate, they have them. Suffrage or bridge, it doesn't much matter, so long as it's not let really to interfere. If it begins to do that, we'll have to put a stop to it. Woman, I take it, was made for man, and she'll have to continue to recognize that fact. Good Lord! It seems to me that if we give her our love and pay her bills, she might be satisfied!"
All having spoken, Hagar spoke. "I should like, if I may, to tell you quietly and reasonably why—" her eyes were upon her grandfather.
"I wish to hear neither your excuses nor your reasons," said the Colonel. "I want to hear a retraction and a promise."
Hagar turned slightly, "Grandmother—"