“I was driven away by an invasion of the Amazons,” said Dick, gloomily, taking a seat on the table, where he smoked in silence for a few minutes. “If there is one kind of creature I bar and detest above all others”—he burst out suddenly—“it’s the New Woman!”
“Have you met one?” inquired Stratford, with deep interest. “I always thought it was a case of ‘much oftener prated of than seen?’”
“There’s no need to go about looking for specimens,” returned Dick. “We’ve got one with us, worse luck!”
“You have been getting the worst of it in an argument again, haven’t you?” asked Stratford, genially.
“What in the world has that to do with it? I don’t want any of your chaff. It ought to be made penal for any woman to enter any trade or profession practised by men.”
“Good gracious! would you add the attraction of forbidden fruit? Still, I don’t say that your plan isn’t worth considering. The penalty would be death, I suppose, and it might redress the inequality of the sexes a little.”
“Oh, hang it all, Stratford!” cried Dick, flinging away his cigar, “I’m serious. It makes me perfectly sick to see these women parading their independence of men, and glorying in what they know, and ought never to have learnt. It’s bad enough when they are strangers, and you don’t care a scrap about them, but when it comes to a girl you’ve known——”
“Better not go on, old man,” said Stratford. “You may say more than you mean, and be sorry for it when you are cooler.”
“I can’t help it. I know I’m safe with you. Now I put it to you: can a man be cool when he sees a girl he knew years ago—his sister’s friend—turning into one of these unsexed women, of whom the less that is said the better? One would rather see her in her grave!”
“You are a little out of sorts,” said Stratford, with imperturbable calmness, “and you are making mountains out of molehills. I won’t pretend not to know what you are driving at, but I do say that I think you are using most unwarrantable language—— Hullo! who’s there? Come in.”