"No, no, Miss Emelene, never better. As a matter of fact, it's a piece of political business that has prompted me to—"
At that Mrs. Smith jangled her bracelets, leaning forward on her knees.
"If it's got anything to do with your partner and my cousin George Remington having the courage to go in for the district attorneyship without the support of the vote-hunting, vote-eating women of this town, I'm here to tell you that I'm with him heart and soul. He can have my support and—"
"Mine too. And if I've got anything to say my two nephews will vote for him; and I think I have, with my two heirs."
"Ladies, it fills my heart with joy to—"
"Votes! Why what would the powder-puffing, short-skirted, bridge-playing women of this town do with the vote if they had it? Wear it around their necks on a gold chain?"
"Well spoken, Mrs. Smith, if—"
"I know the direction you lean, Penfield Evans, letting—"
"But, Miss Emelene, I—"
"Letting that shameless Betty Sheridan, a girl that had as sweet and womanly a mother as Whitewater ever boasted, lead you around by the nose on her suffrage string. A girl with her raising and both of her grandmothers women that lived and died genteel, to go traipsing around in her low heels in men's offices and addressing hoi polloi from soap boxes! Why, between her and that female chauffeur, Mrs. Herrington, another woman whose mother was of too fine feelings even to join the Delsarte class, the women of this town are being influenced to making disgraceful—dis—oh, what shall I say, Alys?"