“Exactly, Dr. Eva McCreery Lathrop, chief of the new Women's Hospital here, and a very good fellow forbye. Good morning, Doctor,” he said, as a graceful figure came out on the veranda, “you seem to be in trouble. I hope Mrs. Orde was able to help you.”
“Your wife is real kind and good, I always come to her when I'm in a fix but I fear it's more than comforting I want.”
“You work too hard and wear yourself out,” said Orde, kindly. “Let me introduce my friend, Mr. Pagett, just fresh from home, and anxious to learn his India. You could tell him something of that more important half of which a mere man knows so little.”
“Perhaps I could if I'd any heart to do it, but I'm in trouble, I've lost a case, a case that was doing well, through nothing in the world but inattention on the part of a nurse I had begun to trust. And when I spoke only a small piece of my mind she collapsed in a whining heap on the floor. It is hopeless.”
The men were silent, for the blue eyes of the lady doctor were dim. Recovering herself she looked up with a smile, half sad, half humorous, “And I am in a whining heap, too; but what phase of Indian life are you particularly interested in, sir?”
“Mr. Pagett intends to study the political aspect of things and the possibility of bestowing electoral institutions on the people.”
“Wouldn't it be as much to the purpose to bestow point-lace collars on them? They need many things more urgently than votes. Why it's like giving a bread-pill for a broken leg.”
“Er—I don't quite follow,” said Pagett, uneasily.
“Well, what's the matter with this country is not in the least political, but an all round entanglement of physical, social, and moral evils and corruptions, all more or less due to the unnatural treatment of women. You can't gather figs from thistles, and so long as the system of infant marriage, the prohibition of the remarriage of widows, the lifelong imprisonment of wives and mothers in a worse than penal confinement, and the withholding from them of any kind of education or treatment as rational beings continues, the country can't advance a step. Half of it is morally dead, and worse than dead, and that's just the half from which we have a right to look for the best impulses. It's right here where the trouble is, and not in any political considerations whatsoever.”
“But do they marry so early?” said Pagett, vaguely.