Her reading and the talks that followed it were exciting, amazingly stimulating.... Once Nancy gave me an amusing account of a debate which had taken place in the newly organized woman's discussion club to which she belonged over a rather daring book by an English novelist. Mrs. Dickinson had revolted.
“No, she wasn't really shocked, not in the way she thought she was,” said Nancy, in answer to a query of mine.
“How was she shocked, then?”
“As you and I are shocked.”
“But I'm not shocked,” I protested.
“Oh, yes, you are, and so am I—not on the moral side, nor is it the moral aspect that troubles Lula Dickinson. She thinks it's the moral aspect, but it's really the revolutionary aspect, the menace to those precious institutions from which we derive our privileges and comforts.”
I considered this, and laughed.
“What's the use of being a humbug about it,” said Nancy.
“But you're talking like a revolutionary,” I said.
“I may be talking like one, but I'm not one. I once had the makings of one—of a good one,—a 'proper' one, as the English would say.” She sighed.