Mrs. Malcomson belonged to a somewhat different order of being. She had a strong and handsome face with regular features; a proud mouth, slightly sarcastic in expression; and dark gray eyes given to glow with fiery enthusiasm. Her hair was dark brown, but showed those shades of red in certain lights which betoken an energetic temperament, and good staying power. It was crisp, and broke into little natural curls on her forehead and neck, or wherever it could escape from bondage; but she had not much of it, and it was usually rather picturesque than tidy. Mrs. Sillenger's, on the contrary, was straight and luxuriant, and always neat. It had been light golden-brown in her youth, but was somewhat faded. Mrs. Malcomson spoke as well as she looked, the resonant tones of her rich contralto voice pleasing the ear more than her opinions startled the understanding. She owed half her success in life to the careful management of her voice. By simple modulations of it she could always differ from an opponent without giving personal offence, and she seldom provoked bitter opposition because nothing she said ever sounded aggressive. If she had not been a good woman she would have been a dangerous one, since she could please eye and ear at will, a knack which obtains more concessions from the average man than the best chosen arguments,
"It seems to me that your 'poetry of the pulpit' is very mischievous," she pursued. "You have pleased our senses with it for ages. You have flattered us into in action by it, and used it as a means to stimulate our vanity and indolence by extolling a helpless condition under the pompous title of 'beautiful patient submission.' You have administered soothing sedatives of 'spiritual consolation,' as you call it, under the baleful influence of which we have existed with all our highest faculties dulled and drugged. You have curtailed our grand power to resist evil by narrowing us down to what you call the 'Woman's Sphere,' wherein you insist that we shall be unconditional slaves of man, doing always and only such things as shall suit his pleasure and convenience.
"Ah, but when you remember that the law which man delivers to woman he receives direct from God, you must confess that that alters the whole aspect of the argument," Mr. St. John deprecated.
"I confess that it would alter it if it were true," Mrs. Malcomson replied. "But it is not true. Man does not deliver the law of God to us, but the law of his own inclinations. And by assuming to himself the right, among other things, of undisputed authority over us, he has held the best half of the conscience of the race in abeyance until now, and so checked the general progress; he has confirmed himself in his own worst vices, arrogance, egotism, injustice, and greed, and has developed the worst in us also, among which I class that tendency to sycophantic adulation, which is an effort of nature to secure the necessaries of life for ourselves."
"But women generally do not think that any change for the better is necessary in their position. They are satisfied," Mr. St. John observed, smiling.
"Women generally are fools," Mrs. Malcomson ruefully confessed. "And the 'women generally' to whom you allude as being satisfied are the women well off in this world's goods themselves, who don't think for others. The first symptom of deep thought in a woman is dissatisfaction."
"I wonder men like yourself, Mr. St. John," Mrs. Sillenger began in her quiet diffident way, "continue so prejudiced on this subject. How you could help on the moral progress of the world, if only you would forget the sweet soporific 'poetry of the pulpit," as Mrs. Malcomson calls it, and learn to think of us women, not as angels or beasts of burden—the two extremes between which you wander—but as human beings—"
"Oh!" he protested, interrupting her, "I hope I have not made you imagine that I do not recognize certain grave injustices to which women are at present subject. Those I as earnestly hope to see remedied as you do. But what I do think objectionable is the way in which women are putting themselves forward—"
"You are right, there," said Mrs. Sillenger. "I think myself that men might be allowed to continue to monopolize the right of impudent self-assertion."
"But do not lend yourself to the silencing system any longer, Mr. St. John," Mrs. Malcomson implored. "The silent acquiescence of women in an iniquitous state of things is merely an indication of the sensual apathy to which your ruinous 'poetry of the pulpit' has reduced the greater number of us."