Louise Fisher had been her room-mate at college, distinguished for her common sense and independent ways and a warm advocate of the business career for women, all women married or single. Many a satirical picture had Ellen drawn in those days, of Louise's ideal of domestic happiness. But Louise had become engaged before she graduated, to a man immeasurably her superior in mental ability, and she had settled down to echoing his opinions. Ellen often wondered if no ghosts sat opposite to Louise at the breakfast table; but she could not disturb her by any amount of banter.
Evelyn Ames, the other disputant, had been an enigma at college. She had attracted many on first acquaintance; but had baffled them at the point where acquaintance ripens into intimacy. No one dared call herself Evelyn's friend, except such as were content with the formal graciousness of her ways. And yet she had been a force in college life, had shown both courage and enthusiasm at critical moments.
She had recently announced her engagement, and was naïve in her disclosures of her own feelings in the present discussion. She was thoroughly at her ease with her companions; for since she had left college, she had surprised many, whom she had before held at a distance, into very real friendships, taking them unawares by her affection for Bryn Mawr and its associations. These three had discovered that her inaptitude for fellowship at college was the result of a former starvation of her affections. The daughter of a widow, a woman of small means, of cold nature and social ambition, Evelyn had not been allowed to find out the softer side of her nature, till she had been sent to Bryn Mawr by a rich and domineering relative.
When Edith and Ellen joined them, Louise was saying, "The only way is to try to divert his mind from his work."
"But that doesn't seem to me at all the nicest way," said Evelyn. "I think you ought to be able to help a man in his work."
"At that rate," said Edith, as she poured out a cup of tea, "Ellen should marry a public man and help him write his——"
"Yes," sniffed Louise contemptuously, "like Mrs. Jones, Dick says——"
"Oh, Nell," and Evelyn turned quickly to Ellen, "somebody told me about the speech you're to make. What a splendid chance you've got."
"I don't know about that," answered Ellen, "it's the hardest thing I ever had to do. I can't for the life of me——"