She went to the window and stood leaning against the casement, with crossed arms.
Henriette turned round in her chair.
“Why do you always resist your better nature, Hadria?”
“You use it against me. It is the same with all women. Let them beware of their ‘better natures,’ poor hunted fools! for that ‘better nature’ will be used as a dog-chain, by which they can be led, like toy-terriers, from beginning to end of what they are pleased to call their lives!”
“Oh, Hadria, Hadria!” cried Miss Temperley with deep regret in her tone.
But Hadria was only roused by the remonstrance.
“It is cunning, shallow, heartless women, who really fare best in our society; its conditions suit them. They have no pity, no sympathy to make a chain of; they don’t mind stooping to conquer; they don’t mind playing upon the weaker, baser sides of men’s natures; they don’t mind appealing, for their own ends, to the pity and generosity of others; they don’t mind swallowing indignity and smiling abjectly, like any woman of the harem at her lord, so that they gain their object. That is the sort of ‘woman’s nature’ that our conditions are busy selecting. Let us cultivate it. We live in a scientific age; the fittest survive. Let us be ‘fit.’”
“Let us be womanly, let us do our duty, let us hearken to our conscience!” cried Henriette.
“Thank you! If my conscience is going to be made into a helm by which others may guide me according to their good pleasure, the sooner that helm is destroyed the better. That is the conclusion to which you drive me and the rest of us, Henriette.”
“Charity demands that I do not believe what you say,” said Miss Temperley.