"If I remember rightly," he said, "you take no interest in politics either. That is quite a phenomenon at this latter end of the nineteenth century."
"I have my duties—the duties of my social position, you know," she answered, "and my own little pursuits as well, neither of which I can neglect for the affairs of the world."
"But are they enough for you?" Lady Adeline ventured.
Evadne glanced up to see what she meant, and then smiled. "The wisdom of ages is brought to the training of each little girl," she said; "and to fit her for our position, she is taught that a woman's one object in life is to be agreeable."
"You mean that a woman of decided opinions is not an agreeable person?"
Lady Adeline asked.
"Decided opinions must always be offensive to those who don't hold them,"
Evadne rejoined.
"A woman must know that the future welfare of her own sex, and the progress of the world at large, depends upon the action of women now, and the success attending it," Angelica observed comprehensively.
"Yes, but she knows also that her own comfort and convenience depend entirely on her neutrality," Evadne answered. "It is not high-minded to be neutral, I know, when it is put in that way; but a woman who is so becomes exactly what the average man, taken at his word, would have her be, and he is, we are assured, the proper person to legislate."
She looked at us all defiantly as she spoke, and furled her fan; and just at that moment Colonel Colquhoun joined us. He had come to fetch her, and his entrance gave a new turn to the conversation.
"It has been oppressively hot all day," he observed.