"You needn't throw women's vacillation in their faces, Tom," replied Ruth calmly. "Stable decisions are matters of training and education. Girls of my acquaintance lack the experience with the business world. They don't come in contact with big transactions. They're guarded from them. A lawyer does the thinking for a woman of property oftentimes, and so, of course, women do not learn the necessity of precise statements, accurate thought, and all that. From the time a girl is old enough to think she knows she is just a girl, who her family hope will grow up to be pretty and attractive and marry well. If her family believed she was to grow up into a responsible citizen who would later control by her vote all sorts of weighty questions that affect taxes and tariffs and things, they would have to devote more thought to making her intelligent, because it would have an effect upon their individual interests. I'm interested in suffrage, Tom, not for the good it is going to do politics, but for the good it's going to do women."
Tom made an exclamation of disgust. He was beside himself with scorn and disapproval.
"Nonsense! Utter rot! Women were made to marry and be mothers. Women were——"
"But we'd be better mothers," Ruth cut in. "Don't you see, if——"
"Oh, I don't want to discuss suffrage," interrupted Tom; "I want to discuss your life. Let's keep to the subject. I want to see you settled and happy some day, and as I'm so much older than you, you must put yourself into my hands, and cheerfully. First, drop suffrage. Drop it. Good Lord, Ruth, don't be a faddist. Then I want you to lay your decision about Jennings on the shelf. Let it rest for a while. Postpone the wedding if you wish——"
"But, Tom," tucked in Edith, "that's impossible. The invitations——"
"Never mind, never mind, Edith," interrupted Tom. Then to Ruth he went on. "Postpone the wedding—oh, say a month or two, and then see how you feel. That's all I ask. Reasonable, isn't it?" he appealed to us all. "I'll have a talk with Jennings in the meanwhile," he went on. "This suffrage tommy-rot is working all sorts of unnecessary havoc. I'm sick of it. I didn't suppose it had caught any one in our family though. You drop it, Ruth, for a while. You wait. I'm going back home next Wednesday. Now I want you to pack up your things and be ready to start with me Wednesday night from New York. We'll see what Elise and the youngsters will do for you."
"I'm sorry, Tom," replied Ruth pleasantly, "but my decision about Bob is final; and as for going out West with you and becoming a fifth wheel in your household—no, I've had enough of that. My mind is made up. I'm going to New York."
"But I shan't allow it," announced Tom.
"Then," replied Ruth, "I shall have to go without your allowing it."