The day was perfection. The motor-car purred like a racing tiger under George's gloved hand. Betty and Penny were waiting, and the three young persons forgot all differences, and laughed and chatted in the old happy way, as they prepared for the start. But Betty was carrying a book: Catherine of Russia.
"Do you know why suffragists should make an especial study of queens, George?" she asked, as she and Penny settled themselves on the back seat.
"Well, I'll be interlocutor," George smiled, glancing up at the house, from which his wife might issue at any moment. "Why should suffragists read the lives of queens, Miss Bones?"
"Because queens are absolutely the only women in all history who had equal rights!" Betty answered impassively. "Do you realize that? The only women whose moral and social and political instincts had full sway!"
"And a sweet use they made of them, sometimes!" said George.
"And who were the great rulers," pursued Betty. "Whose name in English history is like the names of Elizabeth and Victoria, or Matilda or Mary, for the matter of that? Who mended and conserved and built up what the kings tore down and wasted? Who made Russia an intellectual power—"
Again Penny had an odd sense of fear. Were women perhaps superior to men, after all!
"I don't think Catherine of Russia is a woman to whom a lady can point with pride," George said conclusively. Genevieve, who had appeared, shot Betty a triumphant glance as they started. Pudge waved to them from the candy store at the corner.
"There's a new candy store every week!" said Penny, shuddering. "Heaven help that poor boy; it must be in the blood!"
"Women must always have something sweet to nibble," George said, leaning back. "The United States took in two millions last year in gum alone!"