That was the moment our artist at the piano had been waiting for. His heavy figure straightened up; it seemed to swell to monstrous proportions, forcing orchestra and leader out of the vision and consciousness of his listeners. His face now was all eloquence. A divine wrath almost made his eyes blaze as he prepared to hurl himself at the silent, yet quivering instrument. His huge hands hovered over the keyboard ready to fall and destroy. His eyes ran over the keys as if searching for the vulnerable, for the vital spot. Back and forth his eyes ran, and his outstretched fingers kept pace with them in the air. But those fingers could find no resting-place. Still the piano remained silent. And then came the inevitable reaction. Such passion could not last without crushing player and audience alike. Seven ladies in the parquette were grasping the arms of their chairs, and three women in the upper balcony had seized the arms of their escorts, as the brasses crashed once and died out. The flutes for an instant reappeared, to make way in turn for the violins, which now began timidly to peep out from their hiding-places. They grew bolder; they joined hands, and once more their insistent story quivered and sang throughout the house. And as they sang, the player at the piano, exhausted by his supreme effort, sank more and more into his indifferent former self. His form collapsed, the fire in his eyes died out, and the powerful hands wearily drooped and drooped till they rested once more on the player's knees. A sigh of relief swept over the hall. Human emotion could stand no more. The audience could hardly wait for the last throb of the violins, to break out in rapturous applause. The master rose, bowed sorrowfully towards nobody in particular, and walked off.
"Did you watch his face?" asked my neighbour. "Have you ever come across such utterly overpowering individuality? I have played for fifteen years, but if I played for fifty years I could never even approach art like this."
XXXIII
THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT
"The arguments for and against woman suffrage," said Harding, "seem to me very evenly balanced. I agree with Dr. Biddle of the Society for the Promotion of Beautiful Manners, that it is unseemly for a woman to climb a truck and demand the ballot. Dr. Biddle maintains that if woman wants the ballot she should wait until every one is asleep and then go through somebody's pockets for it. Woman, Dr. Biddle thinks, has her own peculiar sphere, which, as the latest Census figures show, includes the nursery, the kitchen, the vaudeville stage, college teaching, stenography, the law, medicine, the ministry, as well as the manufacture of agricultural implements, ammunition, artificial feathers and limbs, automobiles, axle-grease, boots and shoes, bread-knives, brooms, brushes, buttons, carriages and wagons, charcoal, cheese, cigars, clocks, clothing and so on to x, y, and z.
"Can anything be more fatal to our ideals of true womanliness, Dr. Biddle asks, than a suffragette who throws stones? In reply to this, Miss Annabelle Bloodthurst asserts that if we count the number of successful suffragette hits woman is never so true to her sex as when she is heaving bricks at a British prime minister.
"Professor Tumbler lays particular stress on the outrageous conduct of the English suffragettes. He recalls how the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, while eating a charlotte russe, felt his teeth strike against a hard object, which turned out to be a cardboard cylinder inscribed 'Votes for Women.' The chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was about to light his after-dinner cigar the other day when the cigar suddenly expanded into a paper fan bearing the legend, 'Tyrants, beware!' The newest Dreadnought with the First Lord of the Admiralty on board was preparing to set out on her trial trip when it was discovered that the boilers were not making steam. When the furnace doors were opened two dozen suffragettes, concealed within, began to shout, 'We want votes!' The leader of the Opposition is known to have walked all the way down Piccadilly with a tag tied to his coattails inscribed: 'I see no reason for bestowing the suffrage on women.'
"But perhaps the most dastardly outrage occurred at the baptism of the youngest child of a prominent treasury official. It seems that the nurse, who was a suffragette in disguise, had removed the child, a girl, and substituted a mechanical doll, with a phonographic attachment. The clergyman was in the middle of his discourse when the doll began to scream, 'Votes for women.' The father gasped, 'What! So early?' and fainted.
"The more you weigh the reasons pro and con," continued Harding, as he lit one of my cigars, "the harder it is to decide. Mrs. Cadgers has pointed out that under our present system the wife of a college professor is not allowed to vote, whereas an illiterate Greek fruit peddler may. But Mr. Rattler replies that the college professor, too, seldom votes, and if he does he spoils his ballot by trying to split his ticket. Why, demands Mrs. Cadgers, should women who pay taxes be refused a voice in the management of public affairs? Because, replies Mr. Rattler, the suffrage and taxes do not necessarily go together. In our country at the present day many millionaires who regularly cast their votes never pay their taxes.