She rose, and, walking to the window, looked down into the street.
“Do you think that women would have perpetrated London? It took man to do that. I must not tire you. Have you everything you want?”
“Thank you, everything.”
“I will come up and see you again to-morrow.”
Eve had plenty of leisure for meditation, and Mrs. Falconer’s theories gave her abundant material for thought. Rest in bed, with good food, and pleasant refinements round her had restored her normal poise, and she found that there was far less edge to her enthusiasm. She was a little shocked by the discovery. The disharmonies of the life that she had been studying had not changed, and she was troubled by this discovery that she did not react as she had reacted two weeks ago. When we are young we are distressed by the subtle transfigurations that overtake our ideals. We hatch so many eggs that persist in giving us ducklings instead of chickens. We imagine that we shall always admire the same things, believe the same beliefs, follow out the strenuous beginnings. When changes come, subtle, physical changes, perhaps, we are astonished at ourselves. So it was with Eve when she discovered that her enthusiasm had passed from a white heat to a dull and more comfortable glow. Accusing herself of inconstancy, lack of sustained purpose, did not explain the change in the least. She tried to convince herself that it was mere sloth, the result of a comfortable bed and good food.
In a day or two she found herself driven to explain a second surprising fact, a growing hostility towards Mrs. Falconer. It was not a dislike that could be reasoned with and suppressed, but a good, vigorous, temperamental hatred as natural and as self-assertive as hunger, thirst, or passion. It seemed to Eve abominable that she should be developing such an attitude towards this woman, who had shown her nothing but kindness, but this irresponsible antipathy of hers seemed to have leapt up out of some elemental underworld where intellect counted as nothing.
Mrs. Falconer came up daily to talk to her as to a fellow fanatic, and her temperament roused in Eve an instinctive sense of resistance. She found herself accusing her hostess to herself of intolerance and vindictiveness. It was like listening to a hell-fire sermon preached against the male sex, a denunciation that was subtilised with all the cleverness of a mind that had played with all the scientific theories of the day. Mrs. Falconer was a vitalist. She hated the mechanical school with fine consistency, and clasped hands with Bergson and Hans Driesch. Yet she disagreed with some of her fellow mystics in believing that women possessed more of the “élan vital” than man. Therefore, woman was the dominant force of the future, and it behoved her to assert her power.
Eve found herself on tip-toe to contradict Mrs. Falconer, just as one is tempted to jump up and contradict the dogmatist who talks down at us from the pulpit. She tried to argue one or two things out, but soon realised that this woman was far too clever for her, far too well armed. Mrs. Falconer had masked batteries everywhere. She had reserves of knowledge that Eve had no chance of meeting. And yet, though she could not meet her arguments, Eve had an intense conviction that Mrs. Falconer’s ideals were hopelessly wrong. There was la revanche behind it all. Her head could not confute the theorist, but her heart did. Human nature would not be cajoled.
She had an idea that Mrs. Falconer was a very busy woman. The house seemed full of voices, and of the sound of coming and going, but Eve did not discover how busy her hostess was till Dr. Alice Keck let her go downstairs. There were two big rooms on the second floor fitted up like offices, with a dozen women at work in them. Letters were being written, directories consulted, lists of names made out, statistics compiled, money received and disbursed. People came and went, brought and received information. There was no laughter. Everyone was in grim earnest.
Eve saw Mrs. Falconer’s personality translated into action. This rich woman’s house was a nerve centre of the new movement, and Mrs. Falconer’s presence suggested one of those subtle ferments that are supposed to stimulate the complex processes of life. She did nothing herself. She was a presence. People came to her when they needed the flick of her advice. She co-ordinated everything.