By
Elizabeth Hughes
New York
E. P. Dutton & Company
1912
Copyright, 1912
BY
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
| Persons of the Play: | ||
| George Tilsbury. | ||
| Josephine Tilsbury, his wife. | ||
| Mildred Tilsbury, his daughter by a former marriage. | ||
| Imogene Brown, Edward Melvin, Horace Van Tousel, Theodore Becker, |
} | Friends of the Tilsburys. |
| Mary Henrietta Thom, a leader of the Women Suffragists. | ||
| Sophie Slavinsky, a minor partisan. | ||
| Katy, the parlormaid at the Tilsburys’. | ||
| Helma, the cook at the Tilsburys’. | ||
| Cochon, Mrs. Brown’s pet pig with his ears trimmed and wearing an elaborate blanket. |
Time: the present. The action of the play takes place in the City of New York during a week in November.
WOMEN FOR VOTES
The drawing-room at the Tilsburys’ house in the City of New York, tastefully arranged, with a door at each end and a sofa against the wall, over which hangs a beautiful full-length portrait of the first Mrs. Tilsbury. When the curtain rises, Mrs. Brown is seen seated in an easy chair, turning over the pages of a magazine, while Cochon is asleep on the floor beside her. Enter Mrs. Tilsbury with her hat on, a contrast to Mrs. Brown who is in dinner dress.
MRS. BROWN. (Looking up as MRS. TILSBURY enters.) Well, was the meeting a success?
MRS. TILSBURY. Oh, a huge success. We were told of all sorts of horrors. Only fancy, Imogene, until 1857—or was it 1858? well, it doesn’t matter which—women were not allowed to testify on the witness stand about their husbands’ pedigrees.
MRS. BROWN. Why did they want to testify about their husbands’ pedigrees? If it were about their husbands’ descendants now, a second family sub rosa, there might be something in it. They might testify about their pets’ pedigrees might they not? I would be permitted to tell all about your pedigree on a horrid[4] old witness stand, wouldn’t I little tootsie-wootsie-tootsie? (Takes up pig and caresses it.)
MRS. TILSBURY. I don’t know, I am sure, why they should want to. The only time I ever took any interest in my husband’s pedigree was when I wanted to join the Society of Colonial Caudlers, and then I was told that my husband’s ancestors did not count, but that I must stand on my own.
MRS. BROWN. Stand on your own! Could you find their graves?
MRS. TILSBURY. No, that was the trouble. I haven’t any ancestors. I wouldn’t have wanted to use my husband’s if I had had any of my own, but it wasn’t any use.
MRS. BROWN. Well, if that is all they said at the meeting I think I passed a more profitable afternoon. See this purse that I won as a prize at the Bridge party.
MRS. TILSBURY. O, what a beauty! I do wish I could have gone. It is just what I want. Generally, Bridge prizes are some old thing that go from house to house as rapidly as a servant girl. Those tiresome suffrage meetings take up all my time. I never have a chance to do anything I like.
MRS. BROWN. Why do you go to them? I never do. I don’t want to vote, there are so many other things that are more amusing.
MRS. TILSBURY. I go with Mildred, she is so interested in Woman’s Suffrage.
MRS. BROWN. Well, you are a good—I don’t even like to say the word. It would be such a misnomer in your case.
MRS. TILSBURY. Stepmother, you mean. Oh, you needn’t mind saying it. I would be constantly reminded of it by that (looks up at portrait over sofa) even if it were not for other things.
MRS. BROWN. Yes, that too. It is so magnanimous of you to hang it there, to give such prominence to the first Mrs. Tilsbury.
MRS. TILSBURY. I suppose it is more respectable to succeed a wife who is dead than one who is divorced.
MRS. BROWN. Oh, by all means. Dead women tell no lies, nor the truth either, and sometimes divorcées delight in telling tales about their first husbands’ second wives. But, tell me, why do you take the trouble to go to all these tiresome meetings when you might be enjoying yourself? Can’t Mildred go alone or with some friend?
MRS. TILSBURY. Well, I suppose it is no harder way of making a living than any other. I was an artist before I married Mr. Tilsbury. My father lost all his money in the panic of 1893 and I had to do something to help mother.
MRS. BROWN. Making a living? You don’t mean to tell me that the Women Suffragists are forced to pay their audiences to make them come to the meetings?
MRS. TILSBURY. Oh, no! Not that of course; but I suppose I might as well make a clean breast of it, particularly as I want you to help me!
MRS. BROWN. Yes, do. I should love to help you. You have always been so kind to me. What do you want me to do?
MRS. TILSBURY. It’s this way, you see. Mildred’s[6] mother had all the money. George never had a cent of his own and he always spent whatever he could lay his hands on, so when Mrs. Tilsbury died she left a will bequeathing everything to Mildred except that old portrait there, which she gave to George as a token of her affection, and to show that she did not bear him any ill-will. The property is to belong to Mildred absolutely when she is twenty-five, or when she marries, if she should marry younger. Until either of these events happen, the estate is to be held in trust. The trustee appointed by Mrs. Tilsbury died a few days after she did, and George as Mildred’s father and nearest friend was made trustee. See?
MRS. BROWN. Yes. How clever you are. You talk just like a lawyer.
MRS. TILSBURY. Oh, my dear! I have heard it talked over so often that I have learned it by heart, but when I repeat those phrases, I feel just as if I had tight boots on. I am so glad to take them off and talk naturally again.
MRS. BROWN. I don’t see what all this has to do with Woman’s Suffrage. Did Mrs. Tilsbury make it a condition in her will that Mildred should be brought up to support “votes for women”?
MRS. TILSBURY. No, but when George first proposed to me, he told me all about the will, and said that it would be my duty if I married him to keep Mildred from marrying. He said that if she could be made to take an interest in other things and not marry until she was twenty-five, she would not be likely to marry at all, but would probably continue to live with us and leave the money in his hands; that it ran[7] in the family to marry early or not at all, that two of her aunts had eloped when in their teens, and that the others were all old maids. Sometimes I think that George only married me so as to have some one to look after Mildred. A paid chaperone would not have the same interest at stake. She would only have her salary and Mildred might pension her if she married, but George and I are utterly dependent on that young girl.
MRS. BROWN. Oh, don’t say that. Everybody knows how much George was in love with you. Why, he was positively foolish. It was to keep Mildred from marrying, then, that you influenced her to take part in the cause of Woman’s Suffrage?
MRS. TILSBURY. Yes, George and I talked it over and we decided that that would be the most absorbing interest for her. You see the speakers tell such awful stories about men, and the inequality of men and women before the law, and the dreadful laws against married women, that no self-respecting girl who heard them would want to talk to a man hardly, much less dare to marry one.
MRS. BROWN. Mildred made a speech this afternoon didn’t she?
MRS. TILSBURY. Yes, her first one, and she has been so busy and interested in writing it that she hasn’t given a thought to the other sex except to denounce their vices.
MRS. BROWN. You have just returned from the meeting now. What a long one it must have been.
MRS. TILSBURY. Endless; and then the ladies insisted upon Mildred’s waiting afterwards for congratulations and a cup of tea.
MRS. BROWN. You want me to help you, you say, but really, I have no time to go to these meetings. My time is so taken up. There is to-day for example. This morning I had my Auction Bridge class from nine until eleven, and that is most exhausting. The teacher keeps saying “ladies concentrate” just when I am concentrating on what stunning hands he has and so beautifully manicured.
MRS. TILSBURY. My dear, I knew a woman once—you would know her, too, if I told you her name—who fell so in love with an actor that she studied manicuring, found out where he went to be manicured, and got a job there just to hold his hand an hour every two or three days!
MRS. BROWN. Some women are so silly! What was I saying? Oh, yes, after the Bridge class, I went to the Chansons de Chiffons, and I wish you could have seen Mme. Duffoird who sang. Those opera singers never know how to dress, that is why they always want to be Brunhildas and Carmens. Why, in all the times I have gone to the opera, I have never obtained a fresh idea!
MRS. TILSBURY. I saw rather a pretty gown in Sappho once. Cavalieri wore it. That’s a modern opera.
MRS. BROWN. Oh, I saw that. It looked as if it were made in Germany. Well, as I was saying, from the concert, I went to a luncheon, then to the Bridge party, and now I am here for dinner. I have not even had the time to give Cochon the air. Mother didn’t even have time to take her little pet walking, did she tootsie-wootsie-tootsie? That’s why I brought him[9] here to-night. Your rooms are bigger than mine and he has more space to run around in.
MRS. TILSBURY. Oh, I didn’t intend to ask you to go to meetings. I have been obliged to give up so much to go to them myself that I would not ask it of any one else. It has been very hard. I was asked to be a manager in the “Unseen Blushers” and I had to refuse because I hadn’t the time.
MRS. BROWN. “The Unseen Blushers”? Oh, that’s the new artistic, musical, and literary society, isn’t it?—but why do they call it by such an odd name? I thought blushes were made to be seen. They are so becoming. I have always wondered that no one has ever invented a rouge that could be turned off and on like an electric light before and after a kiss. There are so many clever inventions nowadays.
MRS. TILSBURY. Oh, not that kind of a blush. “Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,” you know. It means to blossom I think. This society is for the discovery of hidden genius. The old theory was that men and women of genius rose to the top as naturally as cream rises and that they produced their works of art as unconcernedly as a hen hatches her eggs, but now the psychologists and physicists believe in aiding nature. They find that they can get more cream by means of a separator, that it is all through the milk and needs to be forced out, and that incubators can hatch eggs better than hens. So this society has been formed to encourage artistic, musical, and literary talent that is hard to discover and is unable to find its way to the surface. You understand!
MRS. BROWN. I don’t! It is all Greek to me, but you are so clever, Josephine. Tell me about your art.
MRS. TILSBURY. I have been forced to give it all up because of Mildred, and my last picture was such a success too. It received the third prize in the impressionist class. It was a painting of a street cleaner—a White Wing. I got the idea from a cup of chocolate I upset. The whipped cream made almost all the figure, the white uniform, you know, and then a few drops of chocolate looked like the bronzed face of a swarthy Italian. I just copied the spill exactly. Near by the thick white paint looked precisely like the whipped cream, but if you stood six yards away every one said it looked just like a street sweeper bending over with his broom to sweep up the dust.
MRS. BROWN. How beautiful, and what an original idea!
MRS. TILSBURY. Yes, that is what everybody said. Nowadays, when there is so much interest taken in the Traffic Squad of police and the firemen, the men who save lives in a conspicuous and sensational manner, and every one wants to reward them and paint them and sculpture them and their horses, no one remembers the humble life-savers who protect us from deadly diseases and pestilences by keeping the streets clean. One woman wrote a poem about my picture, beginning, “Germ gatherer grovelling in the gritty gravel.” It was charming. It is published in the Unseen Blushers Review. I will send you a copy.
MRS. BROWN. Please do. I should love to have it and a photograph of your painting too.
MRS. TILSBURY. I will remember. Yes, my whole[11] career was just beginning when I had to give it all up to follow Mildred around to Woman’s Suffrage meetings only because there is more money in it. What does the artistic woman want of a vote? Art has always been open to both sexes, and the Unseen Blushers include both men and women.
MRS. BROWN. It is very hard on you when you have so much talent to leave it all unused, but since you don’t want me to go to meetings, what assistance can I be to you?
MRS. TILSBURY. I know you were very unhappy in your married life, and I want you to tell Mildred all about it.
MRS. BROWN. (Indignantly.) Really, Josephine, there are some things that one doesn’t talk about to a child.
MRS. TILSBURY. Mildred is eighteen, and the men are after her already. You have no idea what men will do to get a little money.
MRS. BROWN. I cannot lay bare the secrets of my married life. Besides, I don’t know but I might marry again. My experience was in some ways unfortunate to be sure, but one swallow doesn’t make a summer, nor one man matrimony.
MRS. TILSBURY. One man doesn’t make matrimony! To hear you, Imogene, one would think you were—not a Mormon but the other thing; what is it they call it?—oh, yes, I remember, a polyanthus.
MRS. BROWN. I did not mean more than one husband at a time. I meant that if a woman is unfortunate in her first choice and is left a widow, she might from her increased experience be able to select a second husband[12] better. It is very lonesome to be a widow. It is all very well in the daytime when the men are down-town but the evenings are so long. There are so many jokes about widows that a man is afraid to be left alone with one. If I should talk a lot against marriage and then suddenly marry again, my inconsistency would do more harm to your cause than if I should keep silence in the first place.
MRS. TILSBURY. I don’t know about that. I used to have a beau when I was a girl who always kept repeating, “Inconsistency, thy name is woman.” He said it so often that I have never been able to forget it since.
MRS. BROWN. How is any one to know I want to marry again if I talk against matrimony? The men will all fly from me. No, Josephine, I must say how lonely I am and how nice it is to have a man come home at five o’clock and to make him comfy beside the fire, and how I love the odor of a cigar, and how strong men are beside us weak women, and that I wish I had some one to help me with my business which I find so difficult to understand. No, I can’t run down men to Mildred like a peevish old maid or a disappointed wife even to help you.
MRS. TILSBURY. But every one knows how jealous your husband was of you.
MRS. BROWN. Well, I worked awfully hard to make him so. I don’t think I will stay for dinner, Josephine, after all. You are too personal to-day. (Rises to go.)
MRS. TILSBURY. Don’t be peeved, Imogene; stay, and talk about whatever you choose. If you would only help me it would be to your advantage if you[13] really are thinking about marrying again. You would meet ever so many men here. They are indeed like flies about a honey pot.
MRS. BROWN. Fortune hunters! I am not looking for that kind. I need to find a snug little fortune myself. You know Mr. Brown left me his money only on condition that I did not marry again.
MRS. TILSBURY. Yes, I know, dear. He was always very jealous. You should tell Mildred about that will.
MRS. BROWN. And be rewarded by being shown off to her fortune hunters.
MRS. TILSBURY. Some of them have money.
MRS. BROWN. Yes, and want more to add to it. I know that sort. A man without a cent might marry a poor girl and work for her, but a man with a little money wants to gather in a little more when he marries, just like an old china collector.
MRS. TILSBURY. There are exceptions.
MRS. BROWN. The men who want to control their wives through their purse. Don’t think the exception improves the rule, Josephine.
MRS. TILSBURY. You are almost as bitter against men as the suffragists.
MRS. BROWN. Oh, no. I like men, only I know the faults of some of them. Who is coming here to-night?
MRS. TILSBURY. A Mr. Becker and a Mr. Van Tousel. They have both been rushing Mildred for the last three weeks, but fortunately she has been so interested in her speech that she has hardly noticed them.
MRS. BROWN. Why did you ask them to dinner?
MRS. TILSBURY. Mr. Van Tousel fairly asked[14] himself. His attentions to Mildred have been so costly that I could not refuse him when he suggested coming after the meeting this afternoon, and then I invited Mr. Becker so that we might play Bridge and protect Mildred from a tête-à-tête.
MRS. BROWN. What are they like?
MRS. TILSBURY. Mr. Becker is a lawyer, and Mr. Van Tousel is old family.
MRS. BROWN. Does he find it lucrative?
MRS. TILSBURY. Find what lucrative?
MRS. BROWN. Being old family?
MRS. TILSBURY. Well, it furnishes him with conversation. That is something in these days.
MRS. BROWN. He must be an awful bore. What about Mr. Becker?
MRS. TILSBURY. I told you he is a lawyer.
MRS. BROWN. That is not very descriptive.
MRS. TILSBURY. It is in his case. George says that points of law are sticking out all over him so that he is as prickly as a hedgehog.
MRS. BROWN. Where does he come from?
MRS. TILSBURY. From up state somewhere. He is a rising man.
MRS. BROWN. I have met so many rising men but they never seem to arrive. They remind me of an elevator that gets stuck between floors.
MRS. TILSBURY. Without any passengers on board, I hope.
MRS. BROWN. Oh, they usually are weighted down with a family.
MRS. TILSBURY. Mr. Becker is a bachelor and George says he is making a very good income.
MRS. BROWN. Well, that is satisfactory. There is the door-bell now.
MRS. TILSBURY. So you see, Imogene, both of these men are exceptions to your remarks.
KATY. (Announcing.) Mr. Van Tousel!
MRS. TILSBURY. Oh, Mr. Van Tousel! I was just thinking of you and saying to Mrs. Brown that there are some men who are exceptions to the common run of selfish, self-centred New York men and that you were one of these exceptions. Mr. Van Tousel is so broad-minded. He believes in “the cause.”
MRS. BROWN. Indeed!
MR. VAN TOUSEL. I think it is a disgrace, madam, to ask women to pay taxes, to contribute their share to the maintenance of the government, and then to refuse them a single vote in the management of that same government.
MRS. TILSBURY. Isn’t he generous!
MRS. BROWN. (In a low voice.) People generally are with what isn’t their own.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. How is Miss Mildred? I was at the meeting this afternoon and saw her sitting on the platform. What a noble sight it is to see a beautiful young girl, far removed from the struggle for existence, take up the cause of her less fortunate sisters.
MRS. BROWN. I thought from what you just said that you believed only taxpayers ought to vote. Of course, you know Mildred pays large taxes.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. Oh, Mrs. Brown, how could you so misunderstand me! I believe in the franchise for all women.
MRS. TILSBURY. Here is Mildred now. She went to change her gown for dinner, but we were so late in returning from the meeting that Mrs. Brown was already here, and so I did not take the time to change mine. I hope you will both excuse me.
(Mildred enters.)
MRS. BROWN. You look charming, Josephine, as you always do. How do you do, Mildred?
MILDRED. How do you do, Mrs. Brown. How do you do, Mr. Van Tousel? (Shakes hands with both, and then turns towards the pig.) How is Cochon?
MRS. BROWN. He has been alone all day, poor little beastie. That is why I brought him here to-night.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. Ah, Mrs. Brown, what a dear little dog. What breed is he, may I ask?
MRS. BROWN. Pig, Mr. Van Tousel, common pig.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. Do you mean to say he is only a pig?
MRS. BROWN. Yes, it is the fashion to be original at present, you know, and to be original in dogs nowadays is so expensive. One has to get an animal from the Summer Palace of the Empress of China or the kennels of some royal prince, so I thought I would be original in making a pet of a pig. I am the first woman in New York to start the idea. The reporters from all the newspapers would be after me for an interview if it were generally known, but I am obliged to keep it a secret because there is an old law against keeping pigs in New York City. They used to be employed as scavengers, then they became so numerous that this law was passed. I can’t take Cochon out[17] in the daytime, except in a motor car, for fear I shall be arrested, although he looks exactly like a little dog with his blanket on, except for his snout.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. Yes, I thought of course he was a dog.
MRS. BROWN. The police are so disagreeable that one has to be very careful. Only the other day when I was late for a Bridge party, and I had offered the chauffeur of the taxicab double fare to get me there in time, a perfectly horrid officer arrested him and insisted upon taking off both the driver and the cab to the station house, although I explained everything to him and that it was most important for me to arrive in time because it was a club party and every table was to play against the room for a prize in money. All he said was, “Madam, you can walk.”
MRS. TILSBURY. That was because women have no vote, no influence. If you had been a man, he would not have dared to make you late for an important engagement.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. Quite true.
MILDRED. I don’t believe the policeman saw whether the chauffeur had a man or a woman passenger when he arrested him, Mrs. Brown, but of course as a rule a vote does give a man the advantage.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. How wonderfully you reason, Miss Mildred!
KATY. (Announcing.) Miss Slavinsky!
(Sophie enters.)
MILDRED. How do you do, Sophie.
SOPHIE. Oh, Mildred, I am afraid that I have come at a very bad time, just when you have all these grand[18] folks here, but I ran in right after supper, because I do not like to be out late. The cops pinch women down our way, you know, when they are out alone too late (looks up at MR. VAN TOUSEL), and I had to see you to-night because Mrs. Thom asked me to tell you that you have been chosen out of ever so many, as the most popular girl, to carry the banners of our Society in the Parade to-morrow.
MILDRED. That was very kind of the ladies. Where is the banner?
SOPHIE. I could not bring it with me. It is very heavy and it would make me look strange to carry it in the streets. The bad little boys would say, “Where did you get the barber’s pole, Miss?” I thought you would send for it to the Society’s rooms in your beautiful automobile.
MILDRED. Yes, certainly. I’ll send the first thing in the morning. Let me introduce you to my stepmother, Mrs. Tilsbury, and this is Mrs. Brown and Mr. Van Tousel. We are all interested in the enfranchisement of women. You are among friends.
SOPHIE. A gentleman who cares for our cause! Oh, that is great, as you Americans say. If we had many more like him, we would be voting just like the men. I am proud to shake your hand, Mr. Van Tousel.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. Thank you, Miss Slavinsky. Any friend of Miss Tilsbury is a friend of mine.
SOPHIE. She is indeed a wonder. To leave this beautiful home and her grand friends just to help us poor working girls to get our rights!
MRS. BROWN. What work do you do, Miss Slavinsky?
SOPHIE. I am an usheress.
MRS. BROWN. A what?
SOPHIE. An usheress, a lady usher at the theatre. And I have to work, oh, so hard, every night and matinées on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
MRS. BROWN. It must be very nice to see all the plays without paying anything.
SOPHIE. One can’t see much when one has to show stupid men and women to their seats all through the first act. People should not be allowed to come in after the curtain goes up. Then, too, we have the same play for so long. A run they call it. It is more like a walk, it is so slow. Now at the opera, they change every night, but the men have it all their own way there. They won’t have an usheress, but we will stop that monopoly soon. We have just organized a union, and we shall demand equal pay as the men. Now they try to put us off on half pay because we are women.
MILDRED. I think there is a prejudice against women ushers in New York. I don’t see why, they have them at all the theatres in London.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. And very neat and pretty they look in their white caps and aprons.
SOPHIE. There is certainly a sex discrimination! Why, a man the other night said to me, “You women are all alike. You never get a thing straight.” Just because I was looking so hard at a woman’s bird of paradise head-dress that I gave her the man’s seat in the third row, and when he came in after, I gave him the lady’s seat in the thirteenth. He threatened to complain of me to the box-office—as if men ushers never made mistakes!
MILDRED. How hateful of him!
SOPHIE. Well, it will be all different now that we have organized. We are going to strike.
ALL. What!
SOPHIE. Yes, and then how we will laugh when we see the audience trying to find their own seats in the dark, and when they are all seated, we are going to the cloak-room to mix up their checks.
MILDRED. Why, that is militant, like the English suffragettes. You wouldn’t do that, Sophie.
SOPHIE. Yes, we will too, and the management will have to pay damages to the people who lose their things. We will have great times with the stingy old managers. You’ll see.
MRS. BROWN. Let me know the date, Miss Slavinsky, and I will wear my old coat that I want to get rid of and see if I can pull a sable coat out of the grab-bag.
KATY. (Announcing.) Mr. Becker.
MRS. TILSBURY. Oh, Mr. Becker, how kind of you to come to-night to our quiet little dinner when you have so many engagements. Let me introduce Mrs. Brown. You already know Mildred and Mr. Van Tousel, and this is Miss Slavinsky.
MR. BECKER. How do you do, Mrs. Brown. How do you do, Miss Slavinsky.
SOPHIE. And is this another great big glorious man who wants to help us poor weak little women to get our rights? No, it is that same rude man who spoke so peevish to me at the theatre, the other night. Go away, I have no use for you.
MR. BECKER. I don’t recall the circumstances. I[21] think you have made a mistake, Miss Slavinsky. I do not think we have ever met before.
SOPHIE. Oh yes we have.
MILDRED. Miss Slavinsky is an usheress at a theatre, Mr. Becker, and she made a mistake in showing you to your seat the other evening that annoyed you.
MR. BECKER. I don’t remember it, Miss Tilsbury.
SOPHIE. Yes, you were at the theatre, don’t you remember, Mr. Becker, last Monday, with a lady all alone. Not a lady like these ladies, but another kind of a lady with a big red feather and a big red cheek.
MR. BECKER. I still think you are mistaken, Miss Slavinsky. I have not been to the theatre in a month. You women are apt to jump to conclusions and then stick to them.
SOPHIE. Ah, yes, that is you, that is what you said, “You women——”
MRS. TILSBURY. Really, Miss Slavinsky, I think we had better let the subject drop. It is not a matter of great importance as to whether Mr. Becker went to the theatre on a particular evening or not. I think you said you came to give Miss Tilsbury a message about the Parade to-morrow.
SOPHIE. And now you think I had better go like any messenger boy. You are right. What has a poor working girl to do in a fine house like this, and among fine people like you? Good-night, Mrs. Tilsbury. Good-night Mrs. Brown. Good-night, Mr. Becker. Good-night, Mildred. I shall see you to-morrow.
MILDRED. Don’t go like this, Sophie. Josephine did not mean to hurt your feelings. She was only[22] afraid that you would hurt Mr. Becker’s feelings. Stay and talk to us all.
SOPHIE. No, Mildred, I know when I am de trop. Everybody is not so amiable as you. I will go. Good-night, Mr. Van Tousel; you are a kind man. If you will come to our theatre, the Cosmopolitan Theatre, I will show you your seat right away, no matter how many wait, and I will bring you a glass of water between every act. Oh we have just dear little glasses, now that the law is passed that each person has his own glass, just the sort to remind one of a cocktail. I have borrowed three for my room. What night will you come? To-night is Friday and the leading lady is ill and the theatre is all dark. That is how I could come here, but by Monday she will be all well again. You will come Monday, dear Mr. Van Tousel, you promise, yes? Good-night, dear friends. (Goes out.)
MRS. BROWN. What an extraordinary creature.
MILDRED. (In defence.) She is a Pole and not used to our ways. She has a most brilliant mind and speaks five languages.
MR. BECKER. Five slangs I should call it, if she is as proficient in the other tongues as in the American. (Turns towards Mrs. Brown.) Is this your little dog, Mrs. Brown?
MRS. BROWN. My little pig, you mean. I was saying just now that I can only take him out at night except in an automobile, because it is against the law in New York to keep pigs. Only fancy, they used to run around the streets as scavengers. Then they passed a law forbidding keeping them at all.
MR. VAN TOUSEL Pity they don’t have them for scavengers now. I don’t suppose they would strike and they feel quite at home in the mud in some of the streets.
MR. BECKER. You women never think about anything but how to break laws and yet you want to vote.
MILDRED. If we helped to make the laws, Mr. Becker, we wouldn’t want to break them. One takes care of whatever one has made. I used to have a maid who never put away my dresses carefully unless she had put a clean collar or a fresh ruffle on one and then she was always most particular to keep it nice. It seemed as if when once she had put a little of her own hand work on a gown that it acquired a new value for her.
MR. BECKER. Be law-abiding citizens first and prove yourselves fit to vote. Women are natural law-breakers. Look how women smuggle. The wealthiest and most fashionable are proud of cheating the government by bringing in some gown or jewel without paying duty on it. Mrs. Brown, here, wouldn’t think of keeping a pig if it were not for the excitement of breaking the law.
MRS. BROWN. It isn’t that at all, Mr. Becker. I keep him to make conversation. Other women have dogs for the purpose, but a unique one is too expensive and there is almost nothing left to say about an ordinary one. I never smuggled anything in my life—that is nothing more important than a pair of silk stockings.
MR. BECKER. That illustrates what I was saying. Women make a business of smuggling for the sake of excitement. Couldn’t you have bought—the[24] article in question just as well in New York, Mrs. Brown?
MRS. TILSBURY. (Anxious to keep the peace.) Cochon seems to be making plenty of conversation at present. Were you at the meeting this afternoon, Mr. Becker?
MRS. BROWN. It’s a foolish old law about pigs anyway. So far from buying Cochon to break it, I never knew anything about it until Mrs. de Huyster looked it up to keep me out of the Colonial Caudlers. She said that my ancestress was the last woman to keep pigs in New York, and that she defied the authorities and was arrested; that a woman like that probably stole her caudle-cup from some one else, and that I was not a proper person to become a member of the society on that account.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. How interesting! Then your taste for pigs is an example of heredity.
MR. BECKER. And your taste for law-breaking also. What is the Society of Colonial Caudlers? I never heard of it.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. It is a very fine society, Mr. Becker. My mother is one of its originators and a vice-president. All the members are women who have inherited a caudle-cup from a Colonial ancestor, and on New Year’s Day, they all meet and drink punch out of the cups. It is a very exclusive society. I don’t wonder you have never heard of it.
MRS. BROWN. It is very difficult to get in, but Mrs. de Huyster couldn’t keep me out in spite of her raking up old history, for I discovered that her cup was only pewter, and she had to turn all her attention to passing a by-law that pewter cups were admissible[25] as well as silver. They had an awful time. It almost broke up the whole society. The pewterites claimed to be the real thing because they said that the pewter cups came over first and that silver cups were not introduced until much later, and that only the parvenues in the Colonies had silver cups.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. Women are active in so many directions nowadays. The Society of Colonial Caudlers shows how much they have done in the line of historical research.
MR. BECKER. It is a pity they don’t spend a little more activity in housekeeping. That little Pole would make an excellent cook probably.
MILDRED. Oh, Mr. Becker, Sophie has too much education to do housework.
MRS. TILSBURY. (In desperation.) Were you at the meeting this afternoon, Mr. Becker?
MR. BECKER. What meeting, Mrs. Tilsbury? I was at a Bank Directors’ meeting, an executive meeting of an Insurance Company, and at a meeting of a special committee of the State Bar Association to draft some measures which we hope to recommend to the Legislature. I was at all these meetings. Which one do you refer to, Mrs. Tilsbury?
MRS. TILSBURY. I meant the Woman’s Suffrage meeting.
MR. BECKER. I did not know anything about it. (Turning to MILDRED.) You were not there I hope, Miss Tilsbury.
MILDRED. Indeed I was, Mr. Becker.
MRS. TILSBURY. Why Mildred was one of the[26] principal speakers. That is why I thought you would be there.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. Yes, Miss Tilsbury made her maiden speech—or should I say the maiden’s speech? I congratulate you. It was fine.
MR. BECKER. I wonder your father allows it. You might better be at home, darning his stockings.
MRS. BROWN. You are not in favor of Woman’s Suffrage I take it, Mr. Becker.
MR. BECKER. No, indeed, I believe that the home is the best place for women. The rough outside world is not suitable for them. When I see you women crying for the ballot like a baby crying for the moon, I think it would do you just as much good if you got it. You might better be at home taking care of your children if you have any. I dislike to see women trying to turn themselves into men. They should be shielded and protected from all the disagreeable things in the world.
MILDRED. Sometimes men do not protect them, Mr. Becker, but take advantage of them instead.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. Ah, Miss Mildred, that was a wonderful speech you made this afternoon. Your speaking of men’s taking advantage of women reminds me of the poor countess you told about.
MR. BECKER. What countess was that, Miss Tilsbury? Tell me about her and you will see how much pleasanter it is to speak before a sympathetic audience of one in a charming drawing-room than before a hooting crowd in a bare, badly-ventilated political hall.
MILDRED. There was no hooting this afternoon. There was some applause, but that was rather nice.
MR. BECKER. I will applaud if you will tell me the story.
MILDRED. But Mr. Van Tousel has already heard it.
MR. BECKER. Let him go and talk to Mrs. Brown then about her pig.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. I should like to hear it again. You tell it so well, Miss Mildred.
MILDRED. Well, the Viscountess of Montacute was betrothed to Sir George Maxwell. That was long ago in the days of George the First, when a married woman’s property belonged absolutely to her husband unless it was securely settled upon her before the marriage. The Viscountess had a large estate and she wanted to keep it in her own hands, but Sir George, while always declaring that he would never touch her money, delayed signing the settlement from day to day until finally the wedding day arrived and the bride was putting on all her finery in one room in her castle and the groom was struggling to get into his stiff white brocade coat in another; then Lady Montacute suddenly thought of the paper still unsigned and sent it to Sir George while the clergyman and all the guests were waiting below. He came flying to her room.
“My dearest love,” he said, “how could you mortify me so by sending that settlement to me to be signed before all my friends who were helping me to dress? You showed them all that you distrust me and that you think that I care more for your confounded fortune than for your sweet self. If you have so little confidence in me, let us break off the match before it is too late. I could not love an unbelieving wife.”
The Viscountess burst into tears and almost washed off the little black patch which her maid had just placed on her rouged cheek.
“Do not be so cruel, Sir George,” she cried. “It was those odious lawyers who have been pressing me to insist upon you putting your signature to this settlement. You know that I myself trust you completely.”
Sir George clasped her in his arms regardless of her powdered hair which showered upon his coat.
“You shall always be free to enjoy your fortune as you will,” he promised, “the same as if you remained unwed.”
The Viscountess was so touched by his forgiveness of her lack of faith in him that she gave no further thought to the settlement and they went down-stairs hand in hand and were married by the clergyman at once.
Needless to say, a few years later, Sir George claimed his marital right to gamble away his wife’s fortune and the distressed Viscountess went to the Lord Chancellor for protection, demanding that Sir George be compelled to keep his promise that she should enjoy her own estate. She found that she was powerless against her husband since the promise was not in writing. The learned Judges decided that soft words spoken in a moment of infatuation were not fraudulent if afterwards their purport was neglected, and that a lover’s vows do not constitute a contract though sealed with Hymen’s torch, so the unfortunate lady was reduced to beggary.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. Wonderfully dramatic. Beautifully[29] told. When I heard you repeat that story this afternoon, Miss Mildred, I was more convinced than ever how necessary it is for women to have the vote.
MR. BECKER. Such a thing could not happen in these days. The married women’s property act has changed all that.
MILDRED. Women still have some wrongs which need to be remedied, Mr. Becker, and a vote would be of great assistance to them in righting those wrongs.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. And you are going to help me right them, Miss Mildred. You remind me of St. Elizabeth. Every time you spoke this afternoon it seemed as if a rose fell out from between your lips.
MILDRED. I thought it was the bread which she was carrying to the poor which was turned into roses, Mr. Van Tousel, not the words she spoke.
MR. BECKER. That is just what you modern women want to do, to give the poor roses when they are crying for bread.
MILDRED. The miracle was performed in order that St. Elizabeth might avoid the anger of her husband. He was a hard-hearted man and objected to her charities.
MR. BECKER. Oh, that was different. You ought to have a husband to send roses to you, Miss Tilsbury, but I suppose your head is so full of these “old wives’ tales” that you never think of marriage.
MILDRED. I don’t know that I have thought very much about it as regards myself.
MR. BECKER. Marriage is the highest aim of women’s existence, Miss Tilsbury, and when she seeks[30] to avoid it, she makes herself an object of contempt to all right thinking men and women no matter how much they may pretend to believe the contrary.
MILDRED. Sometimes a girl doesn’t meet a man she can love.
MR. BECKER. Then she should marry a man who loves her.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. Yes, Miss Mildred, it really doesn’t make any difference whether you begin your dinner with soup and end with ice-cream or begin with ice-cream and end with soup. It’s all the same to you a week afterwards, and whether you begin with loving your husband or being loved by him is the same in the end.
MRS. TILSBURY. (To MRS. BROWN.) There they are, both at her again, each in his own way. Do cut in and stop them.
MRS. BROWN. (Humming softly.)
Why not let them fight it out like the Kilkenny cats?
MRS. TILSBURY. Oh, no! Remember you promised to help me!
MRS. BROWN. Well, which is the most dangerous? The anti for me, but a girl’s taste may be different. Well, here I go. (She walks over to Mildred and the two men and addresses Mr. Van Tousel.) I think I went to school with a sister of yours, Mr. Van Tousel.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. (Sulky at being interrupted.) Very likely, Mrs. Brown.
MRS. BROWN. At Mrs. Read’s,—Augusta Van Tousel. I think she must have been your sister. Van Tousel is such an uncommon name.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. (Becoming more interested.) There are only three in the telephone directory, my mother and myself and a cousin of my father’s. There is another family that spell the name T-o-u-s-l-e instead of e-l; but I do not know anything about them.
MRS. BROWN. Your sister has married, has she not?
MR. VAN TOUSEL. Yes, she married a German and lives in Berlin. She is not interested in “the cause,” I regret to say.
MRS. BROWN. She was very much interested in American History when she was in school, probably because she had so many ancestors who helped to make it.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. Yes, we are descended from three Colonial Governors, two Signers of the Declaration of Independence, and six Generals.
MRS. BROWN. Dear me, and now you are keeping up the traditions of your family by taking part in this live issue of the day—Woman Suffrage. Do come over to the sofa, Mr. Van Tousel, and tell me all about your sister. It is so long since I have seen her. (They walk over to sofa and sit down conversing.)
MR. BECKER. Have you known Mr. Van Foolsel a long time, Miss Tilsbury?
MILDRED. Van Tousel! Mr. Becker, not Van Foolsel!
MR. BECKER. I beg his pardon, but a man like that gets on my nerves. He isn’t willing to do a man’s[32] work in the world and so he approves of women’s going out of the home and working instead. If I should marry, I would want to take care of my wife and not let her take care of me. Don’t you think that is the right spirit, Miss Tilsbury?
MILDRED. A woman doesn’t like to sit around idle, Mr. Becker.
MR. BECKER. Certainly not, but no woman need ever be idle. She has her housekeeping, her children, her friends, her charities, books to read, and plays to see. I only wish that I could command my time as a woman can do, but I have to work.
MILDRED. Don’t you like to work?
MR. BECKER. Yes, but sometimes I wish I could set my clients to work instead. They go to Europe and I stay at home to attend to their affairs. Sometime or other, I hope to go to Europe and leave my clients at home to attend to their own business. I wouldn’t want to go alone though, it would be too lonesome. I shall wait until I am married.
MILDRED. Will that be soon?
MR. BECKER. I hope so, unless women become voters and vote to abolish matrimony.
MILDRED. I don’t believe there will be any danger of that.
MR. BECKER. I don’t know. You can’t tell what a mob of women will do when they get started. Look at the way they behave at bargain counters, and at the excesses of the women in the French Revolution.
MILDRED. I should not think you would want to marry if you feel that way about women.
MR. BECKER. I am thinking of women in a crowd, not of exceptional individuals.
MILDRED. Come and see the Parade to-morrow and you will think differently. Everything is to be as well ordered and dignified as possible.
MR. BECKER. Are you going to march?
MILDRED. Yes, indeed.
MR. BECKER. Well, I will come, but I shall imagine you as walking up the aisle of a church as a bride. (They continue conversing in low tones.)
(Enter Katy who goes over to Mrs. Tilsbury.)
KATY. Can I speak with you for a moment, ma’am?
MRS. TILSBURY. What is it, Katy?
KATY. Helma says it is getting so late that she can’t wait to dish up the dinner.
MRS. TILSBURY. Helma can’t wait to dish up the dinner? But Mr. Tilsbury hasn’t come in yet. Why can’t she wait. Where is she going?
KATY. She is going to speak at a meeting at eight o’clock. Here she is herself. She will explain it all to you.
(Enter Helma.)
MRS. TILSBURY. You are going to a meeting, Helma?
HELMA. Yes, a meeting for the advancement of the cause of Woman Suffrage.
MRS. TILSBURY. Can’t you wait and go right after dinner? You needn’t stop to wash the dishes. I don’t see how you can go now. We are expecting Mr. Tilsbury every minute, and as soon as he comes we will go right into the dining-room and begin.
HELMA. I can’t wait another minute. I am down[34] as first speaker on the programme, and the ladies would never forgive me if I was late. I am to speak on “How it feels to vote.” I am the only lady in the Society who has ever voted, for in Norway the women are as good as men. No other member of the Society has had any experience and can speak instead of me.
MRS. TILBURY. But, Helma, what will we do about our dinner? I will give you two dollars if you will stay and serve the dinner. See, this nice new two-dollar bill? You shall have this. My guests are all here, and the dinner half cooked. Oh! you must not go now.
HELMA. I certainly must, Mrs. Tilsbury. I get five dollars for my talk. Tell Katy to cook the dinner.
KATY. Indeed, and I will not, ma’am. It’s not my work. I wouldn’t meddle with her dirty, Norwegian tricks. I won’t stay in the same house with her any longer anyway. My young man says he will not marry me if I do. She drove him out of the kitchen only yesterday, sassing him about the boss of his district, and calling him a low-down Irish pig. She said she would never vote for a Democrat, but John says she will never vote for a Democrat or Republican either, so long as the Irish rule New York.
HELMA. Seeing him would win me over to the Prohibition party.
KATY. Is it trying to be funny, you are Helma? No, John says that women will neither vote nor smoke in the State of Greater New York, so long as the green grass and golden harp in the hand are worth all the stars and striped rainbows in the heavens.
MRS. TILSBURY. Katy, you shall have the two dollars if you will serve up the dinner. It must be almost cooked, so it won’t be much work, and then you and John can use the money for two tickets and go to some nice play together to-morrow evening.
KATY. John’s not the boy for that, Mrs. Tilsbury. He wouldn’t take a girl’s hard-earned money before he was married to her. I am going to leave anyway now that Miss Mildred is being so talked about for her views on votes for women. He says that the only difference between men and women now is that men smoke and vote and women don’t, and that to marry a girl who did both would be like having another man about the house. He says he has his doubts about taking a girl to wife out of this house.
HELMA. You never saw me smoke but once, Katy Flanigan. I took an old stale cigarette out of a box Mr. Tilsbury had thrown away. I won’t stay here to be talked to like this no longer. (Goes out noisily.)
MRS. TILSBURY. Does Helma really smoke.
KATY. Indeed yes, ma’am. Wasn’t Mr. Tilsbury after noticing last night how fast his cigar box had emptied?
MRS. TILSBURY. How dreadful; but now that she has gone, do serve the dinner and I will make it good to you.
(Kitchen bell rings.)
KATY. I can’t indeed, ma’am. There’s John now. The Union would never let him marry a girl that did extra work that wasn’t her own trade. (KATY goes out hurriedly and almost knocks into MR. TILSBURY who is coming in.)
MR. TILSBURY. What’s the trouble about, Josephine?
MRS. TILSBURY. Oh, George. What has made you so late? Helma wouldn’t wait any longer to cook the dinner because she has an engagement to speak at a Woman Suffrage meeting and Katy won’t do it because she doesn’t want to vote and she and Helma have quarrelled about Katy’s beau. Everybody is here waiting for dinner and I don’t know what I shall do. Why didn’t you come sooner?
MR. TILSBURY. I stopped in at the club for a minute and the fellows persuaded me to make a fourth at bridge. It seemed kind of mean not to when the three were just sitting there with nothing to do.
MRS. TILSBURY. Yes, but there were five of us waiting for you here at home and now there is no dinner. It’s all your fault, so it’s up to you to suggest something. I have done my best.
MR. TILSBURY. Well, I guess we had better adjourn to a restaurant. (Goes forward to greet the others.) How do you do, Mrs. Brown. Hello, Van Tousel; glad to see you Becker. It seems a domestic tragedy has just occurred. Mrs. Tilsbury tells me that the cause of Woman Suffrage is being fought out in our kitchen. It seems rather a small floor for the solution of a world problem, but the cook, who is a Norwegian and a suffragette, has hurried out to speak for the cause, and the waitress, who is an anti, refuses to come to the rescue. I think we had better let them fight it out and go to Sherry’s for dinner where cooks and waiters are all voters. (Goes out to dress.)
MRS. BROWN. What shall I do with Cochon? Do you suppose I could take him in with me at Sherry’s or had I better leave him here?
MRS. TILSBURY. I don’t know whether it would be wise to leave him here. The Irish are so sensitive on the subject of pigs. Suppose we leave him at your apartment as we go by. Come and put on your wrap again.
(MRS. TILSBURY and MRS. BROWN go out.)
MR. BECKER. Well, this is a fine example of what the enfranchisement of woman will lead to; to be driven out of one’s home by political dissension in the kitchen.
MILDRED. We believe in freedom for all women, Mr. Becker. One must be willing to put up with a little inconvenience for the sake of our convictions.
MR. BECKER. And go to a restaurant while your own dinner at home is going to waste?
MILDRED. All food will be cooked in a central kitchen soon and sent around to different homes. Cooking will be done outside of the homes, just as dressmaking, baking, laundering, and lots of other things have been transferred into independent industries. Women can no longer be slaves in the house.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. (Clapping his hands.) Splendid, splendid, Miss Mildred. I have often thought the same thing.
(Re-enter MRS. TILSBURY and MRS. BROWN.)
MR. BECKER. Well, I hope I won’t live to see that day.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. You will have to take a position as a chef, Becker, and eat your own cooking.
MILDRED. Oh, Josephine, I have had such a splendid idea. Let me go down-stairs and finish cooking the dinner.
MR. BECKER Miss Tilsbury, I admire your spirit.
MRS. TILSBURY. Why, Mildred, you are too tired after making that speech to do anything of the kind. Besides you know how hard it is to get your father to go to a restaurant for dinner. He always says he is afraid of ptomaine poisoning. It will be a great deal more fun to dine at Sherry’s than to stay here. I am glad Helma has gone speechifying. Don’t let your father hear your ridiculous suggestion.
MRS. BROWN. Yes, Mildred, do keep quiet. Think of the lights and the music and the women’s dresses. It will be awfully amusing. Hurry and put on your cloak!
(Re-enter Mr. Tilsbury.)
MR. TILSBURY. Are you all ready? I have telephoned for two taxi’s.
MRS. BROWN. Yes, indeed. Hurray for Woman Suffrage! This is the first time I have ever been in favor of it.
MR. BECKER. The breaking-up of the American home, may it long be averted.
(All go out. Curtain.)
The scene is the same as in Act I. The room is empty when MILDRED enters with EDWARD MELVIN. She is dressed in a short white serge dress with green sash and purple band over the left shoulder, draped like the garter ribbon. Melvin carries a large white banner on which is painted in green and purple letters, “Daughters of the Danaïdes.”
MILDRED. (Half hysterical.) You have been so kind to me, I shall never forget it. I do not know what I should have done without your help. I thought I was going to faint right there in the street, and the crowd was jeering so. Then you suddenly appeared like a Lohengrin and seized the standard and assisted me down the side street. I could never have reached home if you had not hailed the taxicab and brought me back. I should have been afraid to take a street taxicab myself. One hears such awful stories about kidnapping.
MR. MELVIN. Yet you were not afraid to go with me—a perfect stranger!
MILDRED. I knew the Club on the corner out of which you ran, what nice men belong to it. Those in[40] the window were all joking you when you left them, but you didn’t care. You came and helped me in spite of everything. When you were beside me and I could see your eyes, I felt sure you were to be trusted. I didn’t think anything more about it.
MR. MELVIN. (Slightly embarrassed.) How heavy this banner is. They should not have given it to a child like you to carry. It would be a weighty burden for a man.
MILDRED. I am not a child! It is this short skirt that makes me look like one. I am over eighteen years old. The members of the Society chose me as standard bearer because it is a great honor. They said that I had done so much for the cause both in contributions and personal service that it was my right to carry the banner.
MR. MELVIN. So you contribute to the Campaign Funds. Well, that is an important thing to do, the most important perhaps.
MILDRED. Oh, I didn’t mean to give the impression that I have given so much. I really only give what I ought, because you see most of the members are factory girls and typewriters, self-supporting women who have all they can do to pay their monthly dues of ten cents.
MR. MELVIN. (Reading from the banner.) “Daughters of the Danaïdes.” So that is the name of your society, is it?
MILDRED. Yes. Mrs. Dunstan chose it. She is so clever and has read everything. She says it is an alliteration worthy of Henry James.
MR. MELVIN. Do you know what the Danaïdes did?
MILDRED. (Solemnly.) They murdered their husbands.
MR. MELVIN. Is that the purpose of your Society? Have you all vowed to murder your husbands?
MILDRED. I don’t think we shall any of us ever marry.
MR. MELVIN. How about Mrs. Dunstan?
MILDRED. Oh, she divorced hers.
MR. MELVIN. Don’t you think a man ought to be afraid of you when you belong to such a murderously named society?
MILDRED. Mrs. Dunstan explained to us that ours was symbolic, that we must kill figuratively by destroying the peace of every man who does not believe in Woman Suffrage.
MR. MELVIN. Are you going to begin by destroying mine?
MILDRED. Don’t you believe in Woman Suffrage?
MR. MELVIN. Not for you.
MILDRED. Why not for me?
MR. MELVIN. Because you are too pretty.
MILDRED. How ridiculous! What has looks to do with it? Homely men vote.
MR. MELVIN. (Looking up at the painting.) Is that your mother’s portrait?
MILDRED. Yes, how did you know it? Everyone says I don’t look a bit like her.
MR. MELVIN. Your smile is the same.
MILDRED. I wish the portrait were mine.
MR. MELVIN. Isn’t it?
MILDRED. No. My mother willed it to my father. She left everything else to me, but I would rather have had the portrait and not so much money.
MR. MELVIN. Do you remember your mother?
MILDRED. Yes. She only died six years ago. I often come down here in the evenings when my father and stepmother are out and curl up in that corner of the sofa and try to recall what she said to me when I was a little girl and to imagine how she would advise me now, when I am puzzled what to do.
MR. MELVIN. Was she a supporter of votes for women too?
MILDRED. When mother was alive, Woman Suffrage was not so prominent. Of course, there were societies and clubs but they were composed more of professional women, doctors, and lawyers. Society women had not taken it up and I don’t suppose mother ever thought anything about the subject.
MR. MELVIN. Wise woman. That is the best way to treat it. You would be much happier if you didn’t think anything about it.
MILDRED. But those poor girls, they have to struggle so hard to get a living. I must help them.
MR. MELVIN. Helping them is a different proposition, but would the vote help them so much at present?
MILDRED. It is a great power.
MR. MELVIN. So great a power that if your girls had the vote, there are plenty of people who would try to control it for them. Try to improve the ideals of your girls, in dress and in way of living. Try to bring about an improvement in the conditions of their work, but don’t mix them up in politics. Not just yet anyway.
MILDRED. Mrs. Thom says it is the only way.
MR. MELVIN. Who is Mrs. Thom?
MILDRED. She is one of our greatest leaders.
MR. MELVIN. Did you ever wonder what your mother would have said to all this tomfoolery? Don’t you care more for your mother’s opinion than for that of Mrs. Thom?
MILDRED. Why do you call it tomfoolery?
MR. MELVIN. Can you call it anything else? These parades and platform speeches, these huge badges and conspicuous standards? Daughters of the Danaïdes! Do you know what punishment was inflicted upon the Danaïdes?
MILDRED. No.
MR. MELVIN. They were condemned to carry water in a sieve.
MILDRED. (After a slight pause.) You mean that my efforts in the cause of Woman Suffrage are futile? That I am trying to carry water in a sieve?
MR. MELVIN. Are you getting any results?
MILDRED. We increased our membership last year from two hundred to over a thousand.
MR. MELVIN. Statistics. Have you gained anything? Made any real advance? Do your members really want to vote?
MILDRED. How can you talk to me in this way! There are a great many nice and clever women in our Society who believe in the enfranchisement of women sincerely, and would make any sacrifice to accomplish it. Look at my stepmother. She is naturally fond of art and fond of society, but she has neglected both to work in the cause. We are not trying to carry water in a sieve.
MR. MELVIN. Forgive me. I did not mean to[44] annoy you. You are so tired too. Run and lie down now, and forget all about women’s rights and wrongs for a while. I am going to ask you to let me call again sometime and you shall try to convert me. Here is my card. Your father will know who I am.
MILDRED. (Taking card.) Thank you. I do feel rather done up. Thank you again for seeing me home.
(MELVIN leaves by one door. MILDRED goes over to the banner which he has left on a chair, rolls it up and puts it in a corner. Then she leaves the room by the other door.)
Enter MRS. TILSBURY, MRS. BROWN, MR. BECKER, and MR. VAN TOUSEL.
MRS. TILSBURY. Well, the parade is over, thank goodness. Now we four will have a nice little game of Auction. Half a cent a point, no more. What do you say, Imogene?
MRS. BROWN. I don’t know whether I dare. I have been losing so all the week. I don’t half believe in playing for money, Josephine. Our Rector gave us such a touching sermon about it last week I almost cried in church.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. Oh, come along, Mrs. Brown, be a sport. Probably you will win to-day. I always find myself even at the end of the year when I play often enough.
MR. BECKER. Yes, one’s gains and losses generally balance in the long run. We can’t play auction without[45] having a little something at stake. It makes one careless in one’s game.
MRS. BROWN. Well, I will play one rubber at half a cent a point, and if I win I will play another, but where shall I put Cochon?
MRS. TILSBURY. Here, give him to me. I’ll put him in the wood-box. It has not been filled as usual.
MRS. BROWN. But it is so hard. Put this sofa-cushion in first.
MRS. TILSBURY. Stop, that is my best sofa-cushion. Here, I’ll put your muff under. It is so big and soft, it will fill it up nicely.
MRS. BROWN. No, he can’t have that, it is my new muff. Perhaps he won’t find the wooden boards so hard after all, he is growing pretty fat. Did ’oo mind the bare boards, dearie? Will ’oo be comfy in the wood-box? Oh, did I tell you the experience I had yesterday in regard to him? A well-dressed woman stopped me in the street and showed me a badge of the S.P.C.A. She said that she lived across the street from me and had often noticed my little dog. She wished to tell me that he was out of proportion across the haunches, probably because I did not feed him properly, and that unless I gave the matter my immediate attention and changed his diet, she would have me arrested for maltreating an animal. She went on to say that she had often tried to get a photograph of the dog to present as an exhibit to the society, but that I never seemed to take him out in the daytime, which was another example of my cruelty to him.
MRS. TILSBURY. Did you ever! What are we coming to? What did you say to her?
MR. BECKER. Just as I said, Mrs. Brown. You women are determined to break the laws. You seem to think that laws are made only to be broken.
MRS. TILSBURY.
Do tell us, Imogene, what answer did you make to that impertinent woman?
MRS. BROWN. I told her to mind her own business.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. Excellent.
MRS. TILSBURY. What did she say to that?
MRS. BROWN. She said she was minding her own business but that she was going to mind it still better, as I should soon find out. I am afraid I shall be forced to move.
MR. BECKER. Or to give up Cochon.
MRS. BROWN. Give up Cochon! Why, Mr. Becker, I love Cochon just as much as though he were a dog, and do you know what sacrifices women make for the sake of their dogs? There is Mrs. Davenant for instance. She received a perfectly wonderful invitation to visit some people of title in England and because she could not take her little chow dog Peeksie with her unless she was separated from him for two weeks while he was shut up in that odious Quarantine, she refused the invitation. She said she had never been away from Peeksie for a night since she had first bought him two years ago. She wrote to the Port authorities and offered to go to the Quarantine with Peeksie, but they replied that there was no room for her, that the largest pen was three feet by five for a St. Bernard.
MRS. TILSBURY. I hope Mrs. Davenant took that for a reflection on her size. She is really growing enormous. She ought to roll more.
MR. BECKER. Does Mr. Davenant like to have that dog around his room all night?
MRS. BROWN. No, he and Mrs. Davenant have been occupying different rooms ever since Peeksie came. Mr. Davenant got up once in the dark and kicked her.
ALL. Kicked Mrs. Davenant!
MRS. BROWN. No, Peeksie! He said it was by mistake but Mrs. Davenant was never quite sure that it was.
(MRS. TILSBURY goes to corner of room and arranges table.)
MR. VAN TOUSEL. That S.P.C.A. is a worthy society although the zeal of one member seems to have been misdirected in your case, Mrs. Brown. My mother is vice-president of one of its branches.
MRS. BROWN. Your mother seems to be vice-president in a good many societies, Mr. Van Tousel.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. Yes, in sixty-three.
MRS. BROWN. Any Suffragists’ Society?
MR. VAN TOUSEL. No. I regret to say my mother is an anti-suffragist. She says she has no time to vote. She calls herself an old-fashioned woman.
MR. BECKER. I should like to meet your mother, Van Tousel.
MRS. BROWN. So should I.
MR. BECKER. To try and make a Suffragist of her, I suppose. You women are all natural proselytizers.
MRS. BROWN. No, indeed. I should like to meet Mrs. Van Tousel because she is an old-fashioned woman. I am an old-fashioned woman and like seeks like.
MR. BECKER. You an old-fashioned woman? How absurd! How about your Bridge playing?
MRS. BROWN. I only do that to please my friends. Old-fashioned women were brought up to study how to please.
MR. BECKER. And Cochon, there, doesn’t he make you up-to-date?
MRS. BROWN. He is a domestic animal, a barn yard animal, and all old-fashioned women used to busy themselves about barn yard animals. I remember when I was a little girl, I used to go with my grandmother on the farm every morning to see the pigs fed. It is only lately, Mr. Becker, that the hog business has been incorporated and taken away from the list of home activities. Women’s work used to be in the home, but now they are driven out to work in factories and offices. Women used to be guardians of the hearth like the Vestal Virgins, but now they are driven out into the world to earn money to pay for the gas that the gas stove consumes. Instead of the “eternal flame,” we have the intermittent gas jet. My cook tries to make it eternal though, she always forgets to turn it off.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. Bravo, Mrs. Brown. We shall soon have you on the platform making speeches.
MRS. BROWN. Not on your life. I was only trying to point out the changes in the times to Mr. Becker.
MRS. TILSBURY. (Returning.) How shall we play?[49] You and Mr. Van Tousel, Imogene, and Mr. Becker and I?
MR. BECKER. We should cut for partners. You women never have a sense of fair play.
MRS. BROWN. Is cutting the cards fair play, Mr. Becker? I thought it was chance.
MRS. TILSBURY. I thought we would begin that way and pivot afterwards.
MR. BECKER. It is always better to begin fairly. We may not have time for more than one rubber. (They cut for partners.)
MRS. BROWN. Well, you and I seem to be partners, Josephine.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. Oh, that won’t do. The ladies against the gentlemen.
MR. BECKER. It is quite appropriate for the ending of to-day. Sex against sex. It is your deal, Mrs. Tilsbury? shall I make up the cards?
MRS. TILSBURY. Oh, dear, the points of these pencils are all broken. Will some one sharpen them?
MR. BECKER. That means you and me, Van Tousel. I have never seen a woman who could sharpen a pencil.
MRS. BROWN. It is certainly much nicer to have some one else to do it. Sharpening pencils is such dirty work. (The men sharpen the pencils while the women look on.)
MRS. BROWN. Did you ever see anything so funny as that parade anyway? There wasn’t a decently dressed woman in the whole crowd nor a good-looking one either—(suddenly remembering where she is)—except Mildred.
MRS. TILSBURY. Those women with the sandwich boards with “Votes for Women” painted on them were as shapeless as the boards.
MRS. BROWN. The United Home Helpers Union seemed to me to have the most style.
MRS. TILSBURY. That is because most of them are domestic servants, and they were wearing their mistresses’ old clothes or new ones. My cook asked me to give her my second-best tailor-made suit and I did not dare to refuse for fear she would leave before my dinner-party next week. I am sure she will go immediately after. I hated to give it to her for it was in very good condition. Now, I have nothing but my best one to wear in the mornings.
MRS. BROWN. I wouldn’t mind that. Gwendolen Jones had one exactly like it except it is gray instead of heliotrope. If you wear yours in the morning, she can hardly go on wearing hers to Bridge parties in the afternoons as if it were something dressy. She will be furious with you, for she will be compelled to get something new at last.
MRS. TILSBURY. Gwendolen wasn’t in the parade, was she?
MRS. BROWN. No, not one of what the newspapers call the society women marched. They seemed to lack the courage of their convictions.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. Perhaps they were afraid of making themselves conspicuous.
MRS. BROWN. They have been making themselves notorious in the newspapers lately.
MR. BECKER. That is a very different thing. If they marched in the street every one would see them[51] as they are, but if described in the newspapers they appear flatteringly represented by flattered reporters.
MRS. BROWN. The men who marched looked awfully shamefaced. Most of them looked like tramps at one dollar per head from the way they walked. Why didn’t you march, Mr. Van Tousel?
MR. VAN TOUSEL. I felt it my duty to act as escort to you ladies.
MRS. BROWN. I wouldn’t dare ask you why you didn’t march, Mr. Becker. You might scalp me instead of the pencil. Did any of you notice the girl who carried the banner in the Confederation of Lady Milliners. She reeled about as if she were dizzy. (Sees banner in the corner.) Oh, there is Mildred’s banner against the wall. I can show you how she did it. (Picks up banner and staggers across the room with it.)
MRS. TILSBURY. Is that Mildred’s banner? Why the child must have come back. Nothing could separate her from her banner. I hope she was not taken ill. She looked quite well when she passed us. I did not suppose she would be back for two hours. I thought we would have plenty of time for our game.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. Doesn’t Miss Tilsbury allow you to play bridge?
MRS. TILSBURY. She doesn’t quite approve of it. She is so serious minded, dear child, she looks upon it as frivolous.
MR. BECKER. As the child is inclined, the parent is bent.
(Enter MRS. THOM, and MISS SLAVINSKY, her arm in a sling.)
KATY. (Announcing.) Mrs. Mary Henrietta Thom, Miss Sophie Slavinsky.
MRS. TILSBURY. I am so pleased to see you, Mrs. Thom. Mrs. Brown, Mrs. Thom, Mr. Becker, Mr. Van Tousel. How do you do, Miss Slavinsky. You have met every one here before, I think.
SOPHIE. That’s the ticket. How do you do, everybody?
MRS. THOM. (Turning to everyone.) I came in, Mrs. Tilsbury, to inquire about Mildred. I have been so anxious about her.
MRS. TILSBURY. Then Mildred is at home? We just now saw her banner standing in the corner and I was going to ask if she had returned. I felt sure that she and her standard could not be far apart.
MRS. THOM. She is most loyal to her beliefs. I am anxious to hear that she is safely back. Miss Slavinsky is a Daughter of the Danaïdes and she ran forward at one of the halts——
MRS. BROWN. (Aside to MR. BECKER.) At which halt? It seemed to me to be a very halting procession.
MRS. THOM.—and she told me that Mildred had fainted and been carried off by a strange man in a taxicab.
ALL. What!
MRS. THOM. One hears such frightful stories about men enticing girls into taxicabs that I was much alarmed naturally and hurried here at once, meaning to give an alarm to the Police Station if she should not have returned.
MRS. BROWN. (Aside.) She wanted an excuse to get out of the procession.
MRS. TILSBURY. It was probably some man she knew, Mrs. Thom. Mildred would never go in a taxicab with a stranger.
SOPHIE. (Who has been making eyes at MR. VAN TOUSEL, interrupts excitedly.) No, Mrs. Tilsbury, she did not know him. I heard him say, “Although you have never seen me before, will you trust yourself to me?” It was most romantic.
MRS. TILSBURY. Why didn’t you stop her?
SOPHIE. What could I do. The order came at that instant, forward, march. I had to obey.
MRS. TILSBURY. You might have jumped into the taxicab with her.
SOPHIE. Then we might both have been destroyed. No, I stayed safe to protect her and took the number of the cab—2961.
MRS. THOM. See what mental training does for a woman. Miss Slavinsky is a business woman. She has learned to control her emotions and to use her judgment. Instead of madly jumping into the cab after Mildred as Mrs. Tilsbury suggests, she very wisely made a note in her mind of the number so that the cab could be traced.
MRS. BROWN. Suppose she has made a mistake in the number and that we trace the wrong cab? I very often think that I can remember a telephone number, and that I won’t take the trouble to look it up in that difficult telephone directory. So I give the number to Central and some one I don’t know at all answers the call. I don’t let on to Central, however. I look up the right number and repeat it to her and scold her for having given me the wrong one in the first place,[54] but it all takes a lot more time than if I had not depended upon my memory for numbers.
MRS. THOM. Miss Slavinsky’s profession as an usheress in a theatre trains her memory for numbers. She has to remember the number of the seats.
SOPHIE. Mr. Becker does not agree with you, Mrs. Thom.
MR. BECKER. Your memory is only too good, Miss Slavinsky.
MRS. THOM. Here we are talking when we are not yet sure whether Mildred is in the house or not. That may be another banner of the Daughters of the Danaïdes or that man may have sent it here to get it out of his way so that he might not be traced by its presence. The motto of the D. D.’s is, Savoir et faire,—“To know and to do.” Mrs. Tilsbury, will you ascertain if your step-daughter is in the house or not, so that we may act accordingly.
MRS. BROWN. (To the men.) Savoir et faire—what a difference that little word “et” makes?
MRS. TILSBURY. I will go and see. (Goes out.)
MRS. THOM. I hope that both of you gentlemen are supporters of the cause.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. (Blithely.) I am.
SOPHIE. Mr. Van Tousel is a hero, Mrs. Thom.
MRS. THOM. Have you signed the petition?
MR. VAN TOUSEL. (Blankly.) What petition?
MRS. THOM. The petition to the Legislature of the State asking them to enfranchise the enslaved part of its population. You evidently have not signed it or you would know, I suppose—or are you one of those gentlemen of leisure who leave all their thinking and[55] acting to their secretaries? Here. (Takes roll of paper out of her pocket.) You might as well sign it now. Is there pen and ink in that desk over there or is it a purely ornamental piece of furniture?
MR. VAN TOUSEL. (Meekly taking the paper and going over to the desk with it.) Where shall I sign it, Mrs. Thom?
MRS. THOM. Right there under the last one. You have not forgotten how to sign your name, I suppose. Even people living on an unearned income are obliged to endorse their dividend checks, I believe.
MR. BECKER. Unless their investments are in bonds and then they only need a pair of scissors. In that case, the shears is mightier than the pen.
MRS. BROWN. (Aside to MR. BECKER.) Is Mrs. Thom a socialist, Mr. Becker?
MR. BECKER. It looks like it. You believe in universal brotherhood, I presume, Mrs. Thom?
MRS. THOM. If it includes the sisterhood also, Mr. Becker. (To MR. VAN TOUSEL.) Ah, that is right. Think how pleased your mother will be.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. My mother doesn’t believe in the enfranchisement of women, Mrs. Thom. She is Vice-President of the Women’s Anti-Suffrage League.
MRS. THOM. Your mother doesn’t believe in the enfranchisement of women! She is a disgrace to her sex. It is the women who, coddled in the lap of luxury, are unwilling to turn out from their enervating seraglios to do an honest day’s work for the hard-working women and girls of the People who do the most damage to the cause! It is they whom tricky politicians make use of when they say that they would[56] give their support to the enfranchisement of our sex if they thought that the majority of women really wanted to vote.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. But my mother doesn’t live in a seraglio, Mrs. Thom.
MRS. THOM. Oh, I know, they don’t call it by that name in polite society because here in New York the rule is, different wives, different roofs, and one is not supposed to know of the existence of the other. One lives in a brown stone Fifth Avenue mansion, and another in a Harlem flat.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. But, Mrs. Thom, my mother is a widow.
MRS. THOM. Then she should be on our subscription list. She can’t give the excuse that her husband does not approve of it. I will call and see her. (Takes out notebook and writes in it.) Now, Mr. Becker, please, directly below Mr. Van Tousel.
MRS. BROWN. (Aside.) She talks like a dentist.
MR. BECKER. I will not sign the petition, Mrs. Thom. I do not want women to have the vote.
MRS. THOM. You don’t believe in “the cause”!
MR. BECKER. I do not consider it a cause.
MRS. THOM. Oh, you are one of those men who try to raise themselves by keeping women down. You are a dog in the manger, who never has and never will do any good for your country, yourself, and who tries to keep others from being patriotic. The vote of women means the purification of the government. Well, we don’t want your signature. It will never represent anything. (Rolls up petition and puts in her pocket.)
SOPHIE. How did you enjoy the play the other night, Mr. Van Tousel? Did I not usher you in beautifully? Don’t you think women ushers beat the men?
MR. VAN TOUSEL. You were certainly very attentive, Miss Slavinsky.
SOPHIE. Come again, Mr. Van Tousel, and let me usher you again to your seat. It is nice to care for a real gentleman who neither jollies one nor finds faults about trifles. Remember the centre aisle.
(Re-enter MRS. TILSBURY.)
MRS. TILSBURY. Mildred is back. She is completely exhausted and is lying down. It seems she found the banner too heavy for her. A strange man did see her home. Here is his card: “Mr. Edward Melvin, Harmony Club.”
MRS. THOM. What a narrow escape for her.
SOPHIE. We might never have heard of her again.
MRS. BROWN. You forget your number, Miss Slavinsky.
MRS. TILSBURY. I cannot think what got into Mildred. She is usually so diffident with strangers. She wants to see you, Mrs. Thom; you too, Miss Slavinksy. Will you come up to her room? (She starts to leave the room but is stopped by VAN TOUSEL.)
MR. VAN TOUSEL. One moment, Mrs. Tilsbury. I am afraid I cannot stay any longer. We have an early dinner to-night, because my mother is to preside at a meeting of the X.Y.Z. The President is ill, and she as Vice-President must be there on time. I promised to be home promptly. Let me thank you for a delightful afternoon. To see a noble army of[58] martyrs—of women I mean, marching through the street in thinly clad delicate feet, bearing heavy banners for the sake of freedom, is an inspiring sight. It should make every man stop and think how much he owes to that other sex which we are accustomed to look upon as less enduring than our own.
SOPHIE. Mr. Van Tousel, you give me thrills.
MRS. THOM. Mr. Van Tousel, it is a pleasure to have met you.
MR. BECKER. (To MRS. BROWN.) Having signed the petition and thereby sold his birthright for a mess of pottage, he is bound to tell every one how good it is and how much he likes pottage. I admire his obstinacy.
SOPHIE. I must go too. I forgot I have an engagement, Mrs. Thom. Give my love to Mildred. I will come and see her to-morrow. Will you be so kind as to put me in a car, Mr. Van Tousel, at the corner please. The cops are so rough to a poorly dressed working girl who is out alone after dark. They say, “I will run you in if I catch you again.” Good-night, Mrs. Tilsbury, Good-night, Mrs. Brown. Good-night, Mr. Woman Hater.
MRS. THOM. Good-night, Sophie. I know the way to Mildred’s room, Mrs. Tilsbury. You need not leave your friends. (Goes out.)
MRS. TILSBURY. Good-night, Mr. Van Tousel. I am sorry that you must go so soon and that we shall not have our little game. I hope it is only postponed however. (MRS. TILSBURY shakes hands with MR. VAN TOUSEL, who goes out, followed by SOPHIE.)
MRS. TILSBURY. Excuse me a moment. I will be[59] right back. I don’t want Mrs. Thom to excite Mildred.
MRS. BROWN. Wait, and tell us something about Mrs. Thom.
MR. BECKER. The lady seems to know her way about.
MRS. TILSBURY. Don’t you know who she is? Why she is one of the most important fighters for “the cause.” Don’t you remember the lawsuit she brought last year against the bootblack at the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge? She wanted to sit up in his chair and have her boots blackened during the rush hours and the boy objected and said it wasn’t customary. They got into a dispute while a whole line of men were kept waiting. Finally the bootblack became angry and declared he would not do it and that he had not the facilities for blackening ladies’ boots. She said that she didn’t wear ladies’ boots and he replied that “of course, since she wasn’t a lady, she couldn’t wear ladies’ boots, but he’d be darned if he would touch her old footgear anyway.” The newspapers were full of the case. I wonder you did not read about it, but I suppose you were not interested. Mildred read it aloud to me because she is a friend of Mrs. Thom.
MRS. BROWN. Did Mrs. Thom bring an action against the bootblack?
MRS. TILSBURY. Yes, she claimed that blackening boots is a public utility service and that a bootblack stand in the street occupies public property and should be open to all taxpayers, men or women. The boy retaliated by demanding damages for his loss of patronage while he and Mrs. Thom were fighting it[60] out. He said it was more difficult to please women than men and that he didn’t want women clients, that the women would be setting up boot stands next and taking all the trade away from the men just as they were trying to do in the newspaper selling. The Anti’s took up the controversy and said it was improper for women to have from their boots blackened in public because they were obliged to lift their skirts too high. I can’t stay any longer. Mrs. Thom will have talked Mildred out of her last cent.
MRS. BROWN. Tell us first, which won out, Mrs. Thom or the bootblack?
MRS. TILSBURY. Can you ask, having met Mrs. Thom? (She goes out.)
MRS. BROWN. Mr. Becker, it seems to me that you and I are the only two people around here who have any sense left. I can see that you believe in the old-fashioned doctrine that the man should go out into the world to make his fame and fortune and that the woman should try to make a happy home to which he may return. That is my doctrine also.
MR. BECKER. “Man for the field and woman for the hearth.”
MRS. BROWN. Exactly. How concisely expressed. Is that original, Mr. Becker?
MR. BECKER. No. It is from Tennyson’s Princess.
MRS. BROWN. You are so clever. You know everything. I couldn’t help but admire the way you answered Mrs. Thom. Why do women make such fools of themselves? They can never be so clever as men. Why do they try to be?
MR. BECKER. My dear Mrs. Brown, I cannot tell you what pleasure it has given me to have met you to-day, to come across one sensible, well balanced woman in this crowd of neurotic, hysterical feminists. Women are making the great mistake nowadays of thinking of themselves as a separate class instead of as a sex, that half of humanity which, keeping within its hemisphere of duties and responsibilities, makes the completion and perfection of the whole. The feminine sex is like—like a tire on the wheel of an automobile. The tire is of no use without the revolving power imparted by the engine to the wheel, and then it is the means of furnishing a smooth motion to the car and of preventing jars and dislocations of the machinery. This has always been woman’s true function, the elimination of the jolts of life so that men’s more aggressive activities may proceed gently on.
MRS. BROWN. Oh, Mr. Becker. What a charming expression and how original—women’s hemisphere. I have always rather resented the expression woman’s sphere—as if women had no share in the human interest but were apart by themselves. But women’s hemisphere! Why it reminds me of a cotillion figure where one goes around to find the holder of the other half of a favor. It is like clasping hands. Do let us shake hands on that expression, Mr. Becker. (They shake hands warmly.)
MR. BECKER. Yes, women seem to be losing sight of the fact that their interests are identical with those of men, that, therefore, they are represented now, and that to vote themselves would only mean sex antagonism[62] and an increased multiplicity of our already too numerous ballots.
MRS. BROWN. What is that smell of scorching? Oh, Mr. Becker, I am afraid it is Cochon in the wood-box. It was too near the fire. Oh, take him away, quick!
MR. BECKER. (Lifting pig out of the wood-box.) It is only his blanket that is slightly scorched. Your pet seems to be all right, Mrs. Brown.
MRS. BROWN. Oh, my dear little piggy-wiggy. Did his muzzer forget all about her owny-tony, while she was talking about those horrid women’s rights? It was a shame, so it was. (Takes off blanket.) No, he is not hurt at all. How fortunate!
MR. BECKER. You do not admire Lamb’s Essay on Roast Pig, I take it, Mrs. Brown?
MRS. BROWN. An Essay on Roast Pig? What a subject. Is it a cook-book?
MR. BECKER. No, but a very appetizing article. If you should read it, Mrs. Brown, you would regret that you remembered your pet so soon. I will send you a copy of the essay.
MRS. BROWN. How cruel you are, Mr. Becker. I was just going to ask you to call, but now I do not know whether it would be kind to Cochon.
MR. BECKER. I will call and bring the book with me. We think alike about roasting Woman Suffrage, why not the same about roasting pigs?
MRS. BROWN. When you see Cochon in his dear little basket with its blue lining perhaps you will think differently and prefer roast chicken.
MR. BECKER. We will see. I must go now. I[63] hear Mrs. Thom coming down-stairs and I do not want to see her again.
MRS. BROWN. You are afraid of a woman after all. You have been saying that they make life easy like a tire on an automobile.
MR. BECKER. You know what happens when a tire breaks. Mrs. Thom is a broken tire and I can hear the gas rapidly escaping now. Good-bye, good-bye. Make my excuses to Mrs. Tilsbury, please. I shall bring the book very soon. (MR. BECKER goes out hurriedly by one door as MRS. THOM and MRS. TILSBURY enter by the other.)
MRS. THOM. Dear child, how generous she is. Always wanting to give to “the cause.” I forgot to ask her to make out that check to my order, because our treasurer has just resigned. She had a disagreement with an auditor about the way she kept the books and we have not had time to elect another. Will you tell Mildred, please?
MRS. TILSBURY. Yes, I’ll tell her. The check to your order as President of the Association.
MRS. THOM. Now, Mrs. Brown, I hope you are going to give up fondling that dirty little pig and show yourself to be a true woman, loyal to the cause of freedom. There is a vacancy in the Daughters of the Danaïdes—for we keep strictly to a limited number in our sub-societies. I will propose you, Miss Tilsbury will second you, and there you are. The dues are ten cents a month, but of course each member is expected to contribute according to her means. If you should sell that nicely fattened pig to a butcher, you could give us a tidy little sum without feeling it.
MRS. BROWN. Mrs. Thom, Cochon has just escaped a terrible death from the flames. He shall not be handed over to the sword. He shall not be made a victim to the modern woman’s propensity to desert the home and children, to philander around after responsibilities for which she is unfitted by nature. As Mr. Becker just quoted so beautifully, “Man for the field and woman for the hearth.”
MRS. THOM. Well, it’s the baseball field and golf field then, I guess. As for the hearth, give me steam heat—it’s cleaner and has more go to it.
MRS. TILSBURY. Why, where is Mr. Becker?
MRS. BROWN. He has gone home or to his Club. I think that he has had all of women’s rights that he can stand for one afternoon. If you make enemies of all the men who have the power to grant the vote to women, Mrs. Thom, how are you going to obtain it? Get what you want first and fight the men afterwards, that would be my advice. I always followed that method with Mr. Brown.
MRS. THOM. You were consistent to the end. You got what you wanted when your husband died, and you fought his will afterwards. Well, we don’t follow the methods of the so-called feminine women in putting forward the cause. We don’t wheedle for our rights. We demand them.
MRS. BROWN. But if you can’t enforce your demands, what do you do then?
MRS. THOM. We will follow the example of the Roman women who, when unjust laws were enacted restricting the cost of their wearing apparel and jewelry, withdrew to the hill outside of the city, and[65] stayed away from Rome until the men yielded and let them wear what they chose.
MRS. TILSBURY. If the men won’t give us the vote, we women will all go to Paris and stay there until they grant it. How lovely!
MRS. BROWN. What will you live on in Paris if the men refuse to send funds? The bankers are all men still, my dear.
MRS. THOM. It shows that you have not seriously studied the subject, Mrs. Brown, or you would not make such foolish remarks. There is nothing to prevent women from becoming bankers.
MRS. BROWN. Except that they haven’t the gold.
MRS. THOM. They can melt their jewelry. It would be better than wearing it like a bought Circassian slave.
MRS. BROWN. Well, I think that when all the other women go to Paris, I shall stay in New York. It would be rather nice to be the only woman in New York with all the bankers.
MRS. TILSBURY. Don’t think you will be the only one to have that bright thought, Imogene; you will probably find plenty of other women staying behind to keep you company.
MRS. THOM. I regret to say it, Mrs. Brown, but women like you are the drag on the wheel of progress.
MRS. BROWN. Well, that is better than to be a broken tire, Mrs. Thom; the wheels stop altogether then.
MRS. THOM. A broken tire? I do not understand what you are trying to say.
MRS. BROWN. Why, Mr. Becker says——
MRS. THOM. I am not interested in what Mr. Becker says. Women who act as phonographs for men are not in my line. Good-bye, Mrs. Tilsbury. I will come in to see Mildred in a day or two. Don’t forget about the check, please. To my order, Mary Henrietta Thom.
MRS. TILSBURY. As President of the Association.
MRS. THOM. If there is room. It isn’t necessary. (MRS. THOM goes out, bowing stiffly to MRS. BROWN.)
MRS. TILSBURY. Oh dear, she has made Mildred give a larger sum than ever before. I don’t know what to do—it is a perfect shame.
MRS. BROWN. Start Mildred on something else. You have had enough of women’s rights.
MRS. TILSBURY. Yes, but everything costs. All the “causes” are expensive. It doesn’t make any difference whether they are charitable, socialistic, political, or artistic, they are all in need of funds. So many appeals come every day that I have been obliged to buy a bigger scrap-basket and the ash-man has raised his price. He says old paper is of no use to him unless we have a currency reform.
MRS. BROWN. Well, a husband would be more expensive still.
MRS. TILSBURY. Yes, to support a husband in a style he has not been accustomed to is very expensive. Poor Mildred, I don’t see what I shall do.
MRS. BROWN. I hope you admired the way I carried off Mr. Van Tousel.
MRS. TILSBURY. Well, I don’t know. I thought from the expression on your face when Mrs. Thom and I came back from seeing Mildred that you had been[67] flirting more seriously with Mr. Becker. He is not at all dangerous because he holds such a low opinion about the ability of women, but Mr. Van Tousel is wriggling his way straight into Mildred’s heart with his pretended interest in “the cause.”
MRS. BROWN. I must confess I like Mr. Becker best. He is more of a man and therefore more manageable. Besides there is Mr. Van Tousel’s mother. She is vice-president in so many societies that she might want to be president in her son’s house.
MRS. TILSBURY. I wasn’t thinking about your marrying one of them, Imogene.
MRS. BROWN. I know you were not, but I was. I can’t marry Mr. Van Tousel, I am afraid, not even for your sake, Josephine, but don’t worry about him. I do not believe he can ever win Mildred. She is too sensible to be attracted by him. Mr. Becker is the dangerous man. Unlike seeks unlike, you know. I will do what I can to change Mr. Becker’s thoughts, but you must help me. Ask us to dinner together again.
MRS. TILSBURY. Did you notice how that Slavinsky girl made eyes at Mr. Van Tousel? She is a horribly bold girl.
MRS. BROWN. Yes, she will probably keep him busy. Now, you have cleared the field of two suitors in one afternoon, but what will you do if another man turns up? I can’t divorce Mr. Becker and start in on some one else in order to protect Mildred; besides that would leave Mr. Becker free and open to consolation.
MRS. TILSBURY. Oh dear, I don’t know what I shall ever do. I am worried to death with the complications[68] that have arisen in this house recently. Here is the cook striking because she says women are imposed upon in a country where they are not allowed to vote. She is going out to California, since the franchise has been given to women there, for she says that although she voted before she left her home in Norway, she is afraid she will forget how if she doesn’t keep in practice.
MRS. BROWN. Why, I did not know that one could forget how to vote. I thought it was like swimming, once learned always remembered. I have known men who have not voted for years because they forgot to register or wanted to play golf on election day or some other silly reason, and then suddenly they would vote again because they said it was an election that was important for the business interests of the country. They never seemed to forget how to vote.
MRS. TILSBURY. Helma says it is the same as her cooking. If she doesn’t make a dish every day or two she loses the knack of it. George complains awfully when she gives us the same thing too often, but what can I do? Helma says, too, that she wants to reach California before the next presidential election because she wishes to write home how she helped to elect a President of the great United States.
MRS. BROWN. Well, you can’t mind her leaving if Mr. Tilsbury is growing tired of her cooking.
MRS. TILSBURY. Yes I do; the next one will probably be worse. Katy is going away too. She is going to marry right away because her intended says that if she stays any longer in this house of insurgents, he won’t marry her at all! Mrs. Thom is working[69] Mildred for all she is worth, and you are flirting with Mr. Becker instead of Mr. Van Tousel. George will be so cross when he hears it all. Everything seems to be in a muddle.
MRS. BROWN. Don’t be so discouraged. I must go now, but I will run in to-morrow and we will try and arrange something. Perhaps you might get Mildred interested in collecting postal cards. That would be a cheap pursuit, unless it was discovered that the ancient Egyptians used them and you had to pay a fabulous price for a postal card from Cleopatra to Mark Antony encrusted with pearls.
MRS. TILSBURY. Yes, come to-morrow, Imogene; perhaps you can help me.
MRS. BROWN. Good-bye, dear. Cheer up.
(MRS. BROWN picks up Cochon and goes out. Curtain.)
Library at the TILSBURYS’. MR. TILSBURY at one end reading a newspaper, MRS. TILSBURY at the other, with a pad and pencil making sketches at random.
KATY. (Announcing MRS. BROWN.)
MRS. BROWN. (Enters, dressed in automobile costume.) How do you do? I know it isn’t time to start yet on our automobile ride, but I came early on purpose, because I wanted to have a little chat with Josephine. Now, Mr. Tilsbury, you go back to your newspaper and don’t listen to what we say.
MR. TILSBURY. Hats and gowns, I suppose. No, I won’t listen to you, Mrs. Brown. I am reading the President’s Message.
MRS. BROWN. Oh, I didn’t know he had sent one. Was it a wireless?
MR. TILSBURY. Well, most people seem to think it indicates wire-pulling.
MRS. BROWN. Dear me, how interesting. Come over here on the sofa, Josephine. I want you to tell me all about them.
MRS. TILSBURY. About whom?
MRS. BROWN. Why about Mr. Becker and Mr. Van Tousel, of course.
MRS. TILSBURY. You know as much about them as[71] I do. They are both after Mildred because of her money, and they keep running here all the time. They seem nice enough men otherwise.
MRS. BROWN. They are too old for Mildred.
MRS. TILSBURY. Yes, but all the young men and boys are scared off by her seriousness and rights of women ideas, but old birds you know are harder to frighten away. They think that if a marriage sometimes reforms a man, it generally transforms a woman into the stereotyped wife, and that as soon as Mildred is married she will settle down. (Goes on drawing.)
MRS. BROWN. What are you doing?
MRS. TILSBURY. I was trying to design a cellar decoration.
MRS. BROWN. I thought they were generally white-washed, but of course living in an apartment, it is so long since I have thought about a cellar or a roof that I am not up to the latest fads.
MRS. TILSBURY. The Committee on Art of the Unseen Blushers were so struck with my picture of the street cleaner that they have asked me to submit to them some plans for decorating cellars.
MRS. BROWN. That doesn’t sound very complimentary. Cellars are so dark that no one will see your work.
MRS. TILSBURY. On the contrary, a great many people will see it. It is for the elevation of furnace men and the men who put away the coal. It is to give them a sense of the beautiful and an appreciation of the artistic. Spending so much of their time in dark hideous cellars, they lose so much of the higher life that it is really the duty of rich householders to[72] remember these poor men who have been so long neglected and try to make the scene of their daily tasks more in harmony with their own luxurious drawing-rooms. I have been so happy this week working over these designs, for I have felt that I was doing good to others, and at the same time that I was indulging myself in my beloved art.
MRS. BROWN. And you have been neglecting Mildred?
MRS. TILSBURY. Not at all. She has been feeling rather tired as a result of the parade. She did not even go to the Suffragist’s Tea that Mrs. Thom gave yesterday.
MRS. BROWN. And Mr. Becker and Mr. Van Tousel? What have you done about them?
MRS. TILSBURY. She has refused to come down to see either of them because of headaches.
MRS. BROWN. Do you suppose that what that little Slavinsky girl said about Mr. Becker was true?
MRS. TILSBURY. What did she say?
MRS. BROWN. Don’t you remember? She said she saw him at the theatre with a lady friend.
MRS. TILSBURY. (Indifferently.) Oh, very likely, it is true. Men are like the moon, they never show but one side of their surface to the world of women. I am going to put a moon up in this corner. Would you make it full or three-quarters?
MRS. BROWN. They show enough of their other side after they are married.
MRS. TILSBURY. Don’t marry them then. I think I will make this a new moon. It is more suggestive of a bright future, and circles are so difficult to draw.
MRS. BROWN. Josephine, you are positively unkind. Here I have done everything to protect Mildred from Mr. Becker and Mr. Van Tousel and now that I have succeeded so well that she is too piqued to receive either of them, you won’t help me by giving me some definite information about them. You don’t care for anything but that old drawing.
MRS. TILSBURY. I must present this to the committee to be passed upon by Tuesday. You are unreasonable, Imogene. How can I find out about Mr. Becker’s moral character?
MRS. BROWN. You could ask your husband.
MRS. TILSBURY. You know what men are. They never give each other away to women.
MRS. BROWN. Yes, they always form a close corporation to keep each other in and women form a close corporation to keep each other out.
MRS. TILSBURY. I suppose that that is an elemental instinct. Primæval men as hunters were obliged to combine to overcome the strength of their prey, and women as the hunted used to separate to disperse their trails.
MRS. BROWN. I am sure I don’t care what the reason was. I will leave that to Mrs. Thom. I only want to know if Mr. Becker is unattached, and I can’t go around enquiring about him so I want you to. A married woman ought to be able to find out everything from her husband.
MRS. TILSBURY. I think it was Mrs. Thom whom I heard make that reference to primitive man. She or some other Suffragist. She was trying to urge the women to be more co-operative. Well, I will ask[74] George sometime if he knows anything about Mr. Becker’s private life, but, for my own part, I like Mr. Van Tousel best, you know. There’s the bell now. That must be he. I’ll go and put on my coat.
MRS. BROWN. Are they both coming this afternoon?
MRS. TILSBURY. No, only Mr. Van Tousel. Mr. Becker had another engagement, but he is coming here later for tea.
(Enter KATY with a card on a salver.)
MRS. TILSBURY. Who is it, Katy? Bring me the card. Mr. Edward Melvin. I don’t know him. He must have come to the wrong house when he intended calling on someone else. Take the card back to the gentleman and tell him he has made a mistake.
KATY. He asked for Miss Tilsbury, ma’am. I thought she was here. She must be in her room. I will take the card to her.
MRS. TILSBURY. But Miss Tilsbury can’t know him either, if I don’t. There must be a mistake somewhere.
KATY. I think Miss Tilsbury knows him, ma’am. He has been here every day this week.
MRS. TILSBURY. What! And you never told me.
KATY. He never asked for you, ma’am. He always asked for Miss Mildred.
MRS. TILSBURY. But Miss Tilsbury’s friends are mine.
KATY. You just said you didn’t know him, ma’am; besides you were out a-playin’ Bridge every afternoon.
MR. TILSBURY. You do not seem to have been a very careful chaperone, Josephine. Who is this man?
MRS. TILSBURY. I don’t know. I never heard of him. Every one seems to have conspired to deceive me. (To KATY severely.) Tell Mr. Melvin that Miss Tilsbury is out.
MRS. BROWN. Would that be wise, Josephine? If he has been here every day this week, things must have gone pretty far. You don’t want to create opposition.
MR. TILSBURY. Melvin! What Melvin is that? Bring the card here, Katy. Edward Melvin, Harmony Club. Why he must be the president of the Cornering Trust Company. I can’t afford to have him turned out of the house. He’s a very strong man. You must treat him politely, Josephine.
MRS. TILSBURY. What am I to do? It’s one minute I must play the dragon and keep men away from Mildred, and the next minute that I must treat a man politely because he is of importance. I can’t ask men here to dinner and then put poison in their food.
MRS. BROWN. Never mind, dear. Let him come up here. I’ll help you out. He must be a better parti than Mr. Becker. I’ll try my fascinations on him.
MRS. TILSBURY. If he has been here so often as Katy says, I am afraid that Mildred’s fascinations are the only ones that will appeal to him. Oh, dear, it is dreadful to be a stepmother. One never knows what a child may have inherited from either father or mother, while in the case of one’s own children, one at least knows if they take after oneself.
MRS. BROWN. Or if they don’t. It is as likely to be one way as the other. But come, have him up. Let us see the Romeo.
MRS. TILSBURY. I must speak to Mildred first. Katy, ask Miss Tilsbury to come here. I must find out how she met him and what it all means.
MRS. BROWN. Be careful. Don’t make a martyr of her.
(MILDRED enters.)
MILDRED. What is it, Josephine? Katy said you wanted to speak to me.
MRS. TILSBURY. Who is this Mr. Melvin who has come to see you. Where did you meet him?
MILDRED. Oh, is he here? (She starts to leave the room.)
MRS. TILSBURY. One minute, please. Tell us first where you met him.
MILDRED. He said papa would know him.
MR. TILSBURY. I know him in a business way but not socially. Tell us where you ran across him, Mildred. Why have you kept this acquaintance so secret?
MILDRED. Why, I haven’t kept it secret. Josephine knew all about it. He’s the man who saw me home the day of the parade.
MRS. TILSBURY. That man, but you didn’t tell me he had been to call.
MILDRED. I have not had a chance. You have been so busy with your painting in the morning and your bridge in the afternoon. I have not seen you alone, but I must go, I must not keep Mr. Melvin waiting any longer.
MRS. TILSBURY. Wouldn’t it be better to send for him to come here and let him meet your father. You forget, Mildred, that you are an heiress and that you must not form acquaintances on the street.
MILDRED. Mr. Melvin doesn’t know I am an heiress.
MRS. TILSBURY. Every one knows it. Men make a business of knowing how much money a girl has. They have it printed in a little book like a time-table, “Bradshaw’s” they call it. Only after a girl’s name instead of putting the time the train arrives, they state the amount of her present fortune and the next stop is represented by her future expectations, and “discontinued” means, she has married some one else. All the men carry pocket editions of this book with them so as to avoid mistakes.
MILDRED. I do not think that Mr. Melvin is attracted by my money. He wouldn’t stoop to read such a book as you describe.
MRS. TILSBURY. You have very likely told him yourself that you are an heiress. You are so used to the position.
MILDRED. Oh, I did. I told him about my subscription to the D. D.’s and about mamma’s leaving me all the money and only her portrait to papa. Do you really think he only wants me for my money? He seemed so high-minded and so much in love. Oh, what shall I do?
MRS. TILSBURY. All men are alike. They are all looking for money when they think of marriage. Mrs. Brown can tell you that.
MRS. BROWN. Yes, Mildred. I have not had a single offer of marriage since I became a widow and that was six months ago, just because the late Mr. Brown made a most unkind will and left all his money to his cousins if I married again. All the judges upheld[78] the will. They had probably made their own similar. They would establish the suttee if they could. Never mind, dear, think how splendid it will be when you have won the ballot for women and we have lady judges. Mrs. Thom will make a fine judge. The men will never get a favorable decision from her. Meanwhile, until that happy day arrives, you are far better off living here in this peaceful home with your father and Josephine than you would be married to an adventurer.
KATY. What shall I say to the gentleman, ma’am?
MRS. TILSBURY. I had forgotten he was here. Well, ask him to come up to this room. It will be better to have him meet your father, Mildred.
(KATY goes out.)
MILDRED. He always enquires after papa.
MRS. TILSBURY. He is afraid to meet him probably.
MILDRED. Josephine, you are unjust. He is not at all the kind of man you seem to think he is. I am sure he is not a fortune hunter. He has lots of money of his own.
(Enter MELVIN just before she finishes speaking.)
MR. MELVIN. What do you know about fortune hunters, Miss Tilsbury?
MILDRED. Nothing whatsoever, Mr. Melvin. They only trouble my stepmother. Let me introduce her, Mrs. Tilsbury, Mr. Melvin, and our friend Mrs. Brown. I think you said you had met my father.
(MELVIN bows to MRS. BROWN and MRS. TILSBURY, while MR. TILSBURY comes forward and shakes hands with him.)
MR. TILSBURY. How do you do, Melvin?
MR. MELVIN. Glad to see you again, Tilsbury. How are you feeling to-day, Miss Tilsbury, quite rested?
MR. MELVIN. Did your daughter tell you, Mrs. Tilsbury, that she is educating me in the principles of Woman Suffrage?
MRS. BROWN. (Aside.) Another Mr. Van Tousel.
MRS. TILSBURY. No, she has never told me anything about you, Mr. Melvin.
MRS. BROWN. Has she succeeded yet in convincing you of its importance?
MR. MELVIN. No, it will be a slow process, I am afraid, but she has declared she will not give it up easily.
MRS. BROWN. She has great success with her other delinquent pupils, so she naturally feels encouraged to try to convert you.
MR. MELVIN. Here is the little book you loaned me.
MILDRED. Isn’t it splendid?
MRS. BROWN. What book is that?
MILDRED. It is called, How Women will Use the Ballot to Extend Home Influence. It is written by Sophie Slavinsky with a preface by Mrs. Thom.
MR. MELVIN. The English of the author might be improved upon.
MILDRED. But Miss Slavinsky is a foreigner. Wouldn’t you like to take it to read, Mrs. Brown?
MRS. BROWN. No, thank you. I really have no time to read. Why, I am so behind in society news even that I asked my maid to read me Urban Utterances this morning through the keyhole while I took my shower. I was going to lunch and I was afraid I[80] wouldn’t understand a word of the conversation if I didn’t study up beforehand.
MRS. TILSBURY. My manicure usually keeps me posted upon what is going on. She seems to know all the gossip about every one.
MRS. BROWN. The masseuse I had last winter when I was prostrated after Mr. Brown’s death was like that, but she found out such surprising things about people and excited me so much that the doctor stopped her coming. I used to lie awake all night after a massage instead of sleeping better as I was supposed to do.
MR. MELVIN. Are you not going to lend me another book, Miss Tilsbury?
MILDRED. I am afraid you are not sufficiently appreciative.
MR. MELVIN. I assure you my mind is open to conviction, only I don’t find Miss Slavinsky’s book convincing. You are not going to stop my education so soon as this surely. Backward and defective pupils are the most considered in these progressive times.
MRS. TILSBURY. (Speaking aside to MRS. BROWN.) Do something. He is making love to her before our very eyes.
MRS. BROWN. Here I go to the rescue. I did not know that Miss Slavinsky wrote books. I thought her vocation was to usher at the theatre.
MILDRED. That is what she is compelled to do, to support life, but her books are the expression of her soul.
MR. MELVIN. Are you so loyal to all your friends, Miss Tilsbury?
MILDRED. When I believe in them. I wish you could meet Sophie and then you would see for yourself what a splendid girl she is. She is coming for tea at five o’clock. Won’t you stay?
MR. MELVIN. Thank you. I should be very glad to.
MRS. TILSBURY. (Aside.) And it is just striking three now. Two hours before tea.
KATY. (Announcing.) Mr. Van Tousel!
(MR. VAN TOUSEL enters.)
MR. VAN TOUSEL. Oh, Mrs. Tilsbury, I am so afraid I have kept you waiting, but I waited for my mother to bring me around in the carriage. I meet that Slavinsky girl so often passing the house that I have become quite anxious about going out alone. (He turns towards MILDRED.) How is the champion of her sex this morning. How do you do, Mrs. Brown? Hello, Melvin. Hello, Tilsbury.
MR. MELVIN. How are you, Van Tousel? I am afraid I am keeping you, Mrs. Tilsbury. You have an engagement.
MRS. TILSBURY. We were going for a motor ride, Mr. Melvin, to see the line of war-ships in the North River.
MR. TILSBURY. I’ll put on my overcoat. It’s time we started.
(He goes out.)
MRS. TILSBURY. Mr. Tilsbury and I want to thank you, Mr. Melvin, for your kindness in bringing Mildred home the day of the parade, but we tell her that although in this case, of course, everything was all right, she ought not to be quite so ready to trust a stranger.
MR. MELVIN. I am afraid that she only had a[82] choice between my taxicab and an ambulance that day, Mrs. Tilsbury, and the doctor in the ambulance would have been a stranger.
MRS. TILSBURY. She might have telephoned to us.
MILDRED. Why, Josephine, I was too dizzy headed to telephone. Everything was going round and round.
MRS. TILSBURY. Well, Mr. Melvin might have telephoned then, but of course, I suppose you did the best you could, Mr. Melvin. Only it seems a rather curious affair.
MRS. BROWN. I must go and put on my coat and pick up Cochon. I left him in the hall with the fur coats. I was afraid to bring him near the fire. Dear little thing, how he does love a motor ride. He grunts all the way.
(She goes out.)
MR. MELVIN. Good-bye, Mrs. Tilsbury, I am delighted to have met you. I hope you will enjoy your ride, Miss Tilsbury.
MILDRED. I am not going.
MRS. TILSBURY and MR. VAN TOUSEL. Not going! Why not?
MILDRED. No, I have a cold. I told you I wasn’t going at luncheon. Don’t you remember, Josephine? Won’t you stay and talk to me, Mr. Melvin?
MR. MELVIN. I should be delighted to, if you are sure it won’t make your cold worse.
MRS. TILSBURY. Why, I didn’t know you had a cold, Mildred. You said at luncheon that you had a headache.
MILDRED. Well, that was brought about by the cold.
MRS. TILSBURY. You look so well. I thought it had passed off.
(Re-enter MRS. BROWN in fur coat with COCHON under her arm.)
MRS. BROWN. Doesn’t Cochon match my coat nicely?
MRS. TILSBURY. Mildred is not going with us. She says she has a cold.
MRS. BROWN. Oh, come along, Mildred. The fresh air will do your cold good.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. Yes, Miss Mildred. Don’t disappoint us in this way. Melvin will come and see you another time.
MRS. BROWN. Why won’t Mr. Melvin come with us?
MR. MELVIN. Thank you. I can’t very well. I have an engagement for four o’clock.
MRS. BROWN. I thought you were going to stay here for tea at five o’clock.
MR. MELVIN. I was coming back to tea to meet Miss Slavinsky.
(MR. TILSBURY returns dressed in fur coat and goggles.)
MR. TILSBURY. Come along, Josephine. Are you not ready yet? The days are growing so short that we ought to start right away if we are going to return before dark.
MRS. BROWN. We are waiting for Mildred.
MRS. TILSBURY. (Decidedly.) If you do not feel well enough to go, Mildred, I will stay at home with you. Perhaps we had best send for the doctor.
MILDRED. Oh, don’t stay at home for me, Josephine. I shall be all right.
MR. MELVIN. I will take good care of her, Mrs. Tilsbury. Don’t worry.
MRS. BROWN. (Aside.) No doubt he will. (To MILDRED.) Let me stay with you, Mildred dear.
MILDRED. Oh, no, Mrs. Brown. Cochon would be so disappointed.
MR. TILSBURY. Come, come, Josephine, we can go and be back in less time than you take to argue about it.
MRS. TILSBURY. (To MRS. BROWN.) Men are so dense. What shall I do?
MRS. BROWN. Go and come back.
MRS. TILSBURY. I guess that will be best. (Making a last effort.) Are you sure you won’t go, Mildred? You wouldn’t feel cold sitting between Mrs. Brown and me on the back seat and this is your last chance you know. The fleet sails away to-morrow.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. You oughtn’t to miss seeing it, Miss Mildred. It is an international event.
MILDRED. But what would become of Cochon? He will have to sit between you and Mrs. Brown, Josephine.
MRS. TILSBURY. We will leave Cochon here.
MILDRED. Oh, no! That would be a pity. He enjoys automobiling so much. Do hurry, Josephine. Here, let me hold your coat for you.
MR. TILSBURY. (From below.) Josephine, are you coming? It will be dark before we start.
MRS. TILSBURY. Yes, dear, we’re all ready. Good-bye, Mildred. Take good care of yourself. Good-bye, Mr. Melvin.
ALL. Good-bye, good-bye. (Exit all but MILDRED and MELVIN.)
MR. MELVIN. (Softly.) At last they have all gone. Do they always bother you like this?
MILDRED. Yes, Josephine fusses over me all the time. Fortunately this week she has been busy over her drawing and I have been a little free to do what I chose. Oh, what am I saying?
MR. MELVIN. You were unconsciously paying me an indirect compliment which it was very sweet to me to hear.
MILDRED. I have done lots of things that I wanted to do this week, Mr. Melvin. You weren’t the only thing.
MR. MELVIN. Am I a thing?
MILDRED. Well, people then. I have seen lots of people.
MR. MELVIN. (Suspiciously.) Men?
MILDRED. Men and women both. (To change the subject.) I don’t know but what you were right about the Daughters of the Danaïdes, Mr. Melvin.
MR. MELVIN. Right how?
MILDRED. About their drawing water in a sieve. I am beginning to be very discouraged. We do not seem to accomplish anything. There doesn’t seem to be any prospect of our ever really accomplishing anything, and sometimes I am not sure that the others care; even Mrs. Thom seems to enjoy the excitement more than she is concerned about results.
MR. MELVIN. Why, do you know, I am beginning to be of just the opposite opinion and to believe that societies like the Daughters of the Danaïdes do a lot[86] of good in teaching women to organize and to think and to prepare themselves eventually for the vote.
MILDRED. Then we are just as far apart in agreeing as ever—since we have both turned around.
MR. MELVIN. Not at all, for we have each had two points of view now and can sympathize better with each other.
MILDRED. I am so glad to talk with you. I feel so lonely. Josephine and I have so little in common and Mrs. Thom and Sophie have such different ideas from mine. I am afraid I am not strong minded.
MR. MELVIN. Don’t be. Talk to me all you want. I think you have beautiful ideas.
MILDRED. They are very foolish ones I am afraid.
MR. MELVIN. Not to me. Mildred, marry me and then we can talk over these matters more intimately as men and women should, and then we could help each other to understand all these questions better.
MILDRED. I never thought of this.
MR. MELVIN. No, but I have and I want you very much dear. I can teach you to carry water in a sieve in a more scientific way than the old Danaïdes ever thought of.
MILDRED. How is that? Will you stop up the holes?
MR. MELVIN. No, that would take too long. I have a better plan. We will freeze the water into ice.
MILDRED. If I married you what would papa and Josephine do without me? I have all the money, you know, and support the house.
MR. MELVIN. That could be arranged. I have[87] plenty of money for both you and me and I am making more all the time. The Cornering Trust is in splendid condition.
MILDRED. And mamma’s portrait, I should hate to leave it. It is my Guardian Angel, you know.
MR. MELVIN. I have a splendid idea. We’ll buy the portrait. We will pay an enormous price for it and establish a record value. Then we will have the picture and your father will have enough to live on. He would be willing to part with the portrait, wouldn’t he?
MILDRED. I think so, to me at any rate. It is by Madrazo. It is really a valuable painting.
MR. MELVIN. Then, Mildred, dear, please do not try to think of any more objections. I should try very hard to make you happy.
MILDRED. We have known each other for so short a time.
MR. MELVIN. That is very true. We must begin to grow better acquainted at once. (He takes her hand in his.) Suppose I give you a few lessons in how to fall in love in exchange for those lessons in the principles of women’s rights.
MILDRED. I am afraid you are not very serious.
MR. MELVIN. Forgive me, sweetheart, if I seem frivolous. I have never felt more serious in my life. (Puts his arm around her.)
(Enter MR. and MRS. TILSBURY, followed by MRS. BROWN who holds a handkerchief to her eyes and is assisted to walk by MR. VAN TOUSEL.)
MRS. TILSBURY. A tire broke and we were obliged to come home in a trolley car.
MR. TILSBURY. I don’t see what was the matter with that tire. It was only put on last week.
MRS. BROWN. And Cochon is killed.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. And my fur coat has been stolen.
ALL. (Seeing MELVIN and MILDRED.) Oh!
MILDRED. Mr. Melvin and I are engaged, papa.
MR. TILSBURY. Engaged without asking my consent! I forbid it.
MR. MELVIN. (Understanding his thoughts.) I was just going to ask it, Tilsbury. I am going to take two treasures away from you at once,—your daughter and your late wife’s portrait. Mildred wants it and I will give you $200,000 for it.
MRS. TILSBURY. (Aside.) Thank Heaven, I shall not be obliged to go to any more Woman Suffrage meetings.
MR. TILSBURY. Melvin, this is a surprise to me. You must let me think it over.
MRS. TILSBURY. (Aside.) And to get rid of the old portrait too. The whole thing is too good to be true. (To MR. TILSBURY.) Don’t keep Mr. Melvin in suspense, George. The cruel parent is out of fashion nowadays.
MILDRED. Dear papa, Edward and I are going to be so happy together.
MR. TILSBURY. (Aside.) Two hundred thousand dollars and my commissions as trustee. Melvin has his hands so full now, he won’t want to bother with the care of Mildred’s little fortune. (To MELVIN.) Melvin, I will entrust my daughter to your hands. I am sure you are worthy of her. As to the portrait—bitter as it is to me to part with this last token of[89] my late wife’s affection bequeathed to me in her will, yet for Mildred’s sake I will give you her dear mother’s portrait for $200,000.
KATY. (Announcing.) Mrs. Thom.
(MRS. THOM enters.)
MRS. BROWN. Two broken tires in one day and Cochon dead. It is too much. (Sobs.)
MRS. THOM. I was so disappointed that you couldn’t come to pour tea at the Suffrage reception yesterday. I am so sorry you have been ill, dear child. I hope you are feeling better to-day. (Looks at her suspiciously.)
MILDRED. Yes, indeed, Mrs. Thom, I am quite recovered, thank you. I hated to fall out the last minute, but I had such a bad headache that I could not have carried the tea in the sieve—the tea strainer, I mean.
MRS. THOM. Well, you must come next week. The teas are to be held at the Club-house every Friday during the month. The cups all have “Votes for Women” on them, and I charge fifty cents for a cup of tea and the purchaser carries the cup home. It is a very good arrangement, for we make quite a little sum in our sales and the cups remind the purchasers of the cause.
MRS. TILSBURY. I am afraid Mildred will not have much time for Woman Suffrage teas at present, Mrs. Thom. She has just become engaged to Mr. Melvin.
MRS. THOM. Mildred engaged! Why, when did that happen?
MRS. TILSBURY. About an hour ago. It is a result of your Woman Suffrage Parade. Mr. Melvin saw[90] Mildred home in a taxi cab on that day, you remember.
MRS. THOM. Dear child, I hope you will be happy, but knowing from my own case and from that of many of my friends how unequal are the risks that men and women assume in the married state, I can only tremble for your future. Of course your fiancé believes in the cause, otherwise you would not have accepted him.
MILDRED. Oh, Josephine, how could you! We were not going to announce our engagement just yet.
MRS. TILSBURY. I thought you were announcing it rather emphatically when we came in.
MILDRED. I want to introduce you to Mr. Melvin, Mrs. Thom. He has just finished reading your preface to Sophie’s book and is delighted to have the opportunity to tell you how much he enjoyed it.
MR. MELVIN. I am glad to meet you, Mrs. Thom, but I cannot claim your friendship on false pretences. I regret to say I skipped your preface. It is the one thing I have learned from the Shavian philosophy, but I will ask Mildred to tell me about it sometime.
MRS. THOM. Of course your fiancé has signed the petition, Mildred?
MR. MELVIN. No, Mrs. Thom, I do not believe sufficiently in “the cause” to be willing to sign the petition.
MRS. THOM. Do you know what petition I mean?
MR. MELVIN. Certainly: the petition to the State Legislature for the Enfranchisement of Women Citizens.
MRS. THOM. You know about the petition and yet you refuse to subscribe to it! Mildred, dear, this is a question of your future happiness. I might almost[91] say of your future safety. Reflect before it is too late what it means to put yourself in the power of a man who believes in the continued enslavement of women.
MR. MELVIN. Oh, Mrs. Thom, you are too severe. If I am in no hurry to see women voting and a reduplication of the ignorant vote, I refuse to be called a Bluebeard. I believe that noble women are inherent queens above the vote, not below it.
MRS. THOM. In England they class women with children and lunatics in barring them from political rights. In New York, the Constitution extends the vote to any male citizen over twenty-one years old regardless of whether he is sane or insane. Even a lunatic if he be a male is held superior to a woman.
MRS. BROWN. That’s because so many men are a little queer. If votes could be challenged for craziness as well as for illegal residence the watchers at the polls would never finish their tasks.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. I want to wish you every happiness, Miss Mildred, but like Mrs. Thom, I feel a little uncertain about your future. A woman who is so strong on the subject of Woman Suffrage as you are ought to marry a man who could sympathize with her.
MILDRED. Oh, but Edward does sympathize with me. He has been sympathizing with me all the week. I never met any one who understood me so well.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. Perhaps I should have said sympathize in “the cause.” A man and a woman who believe in the same cause when joined together can do so much for its advancement.
MILDRED. I will convert him after we are married.
MRS. THOM. It will be too late then. Conversion[92] after marriage is like putting yeast in bread after it is baked. It cannot raise the fallen.
(Enter SOPHIE SLAVINSKY and BECKER. The latter a little shamefaced.)
KATY. (Announcing.) Mr. and Mrs. Becker!
MILDRED. Oh, Sophie, I am so glad to see you. I want to be the first to tell you of my engagement to Mr. Melvin, since Josephine has already let the cat out of the bag.
SOPHIE. How lovely! Let me kiss you. Marriage is true happiness for a woman. We must have a little talk together, you and I. (Turning to others.) How do you all do, you dear good people.
MRS. TILSBURY. How do you do, Miss Slavinsky.
SOPHIE. Mrs. Becker, please, Mrs. Theodore Halowell Becker. We have just been married by the Mayor and I stopped here to see Mildred before we start on the honeymoon. Nicht Wahr, dearest? (To Becker.)
MRS. THOM. You have married that man—that monster who tramples the rights of women beneath his feet like worms in the dust!
SOPHIE. We have—what you call it?—swapped votes, like two men, a Republican and a Democrat, when they want to go play golf on election day. They two agree, not one will vote. Then everything is cancelled. So Mr. Becker and me—he is a great big opponent to the cause and I am a strong advocate. If we both keep quiet the result is zero, see?
MRS. BROWN. Ah, yes, you and Mr. Becker have become two adjacent hemispheres.
SOPHIE. (After a slight pause.) Yes, every brain[93] consists of two hemispheres, and I am proud to be a hemisphere of Mr. Becker’s great, big, splendid brain.
MILDRED. This is such a beautiful surprise. Sophie, dear, do tell us how it all happened.
SOPHIE. Well, you see that day when Mr. Becker met me here, he came to the theatre the next night to see if I really usher and he bought his ticket so late he was obliged to take a way back and sit down seat; almost under the—what do you call it?—oh, yes, the undress circle where people wear their business clothes. Just as I had shown him his place and had pushed down his seat and made him comfortable, and had given him a programme, which he had forgot to take, and was going to help him off with his overcoat, I happened to look up, and there was a big pair of opera-glasses falling down from the undress circle right towards his dear little bald spot, as if it were a bull’s-eye, and I put out my arm and it hit my arm instead of his head and made one great blue spot. It is there yet, see. (Bares arm.)
MILDRED. You saved Mr. Becker’s life and then he married you! How romantic! It is just like Edward and me, only it was Edward that saved my life that day of the Parade.
MR. BECKER. Pardon me, Miss Tilsbury, you women——
SOPHIE. Dear!
MR. BECKER. Except you, Sophie, you women all generalize from one example. Sophie did probably save my life, but Mr. Melvin can hardly be said to have saved yours.
SOPHIE. Is he not sweet? He has promised now[94] whenever he says “you women” to make of me an exception.
MILDRED. But go on with your story, Sophie. What happened next when you had saved Mr. Becker’s head from the opera-glasses?
MRS. BROWN. Did the owner ever claim them?
SOPHIE. I don’t know. I returned them to the lost and found office. Well, my arm was so hurted that I could not usher any more this last week. How could I put out disorderly audiences with one arm laid up in a sling? Well, Mr. Becker came to see me every day with flowers and—well, love did the rest.
MILDRED. Well, dear Sophie, I am so glad you are happy.
MRS. THOM. I suppose we shall not see you at the tea on next Friday.
SOPHIE. No, we are going to Niagara, for our honeymoon. It is train time now, Theodore, nicht wahr?
MR. BECKER. I think we should be starting. You women—except you, Sophie—are so apt to miss trains.
SOPHIE. Au revoir. Auf wiedersehen! See you later.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. Good-bye. My congratulations, Becker.
(The Beckers leave after embraces and kisses.)
MR. VAN TOUSEL. There but for the kindness of Providence goes Henry Van Tousel.
MILDRED. Dear me, hasn’t this been a wonderful afternoon! Poor little me engaged and Sophie married!
MR. MELVIN. It has been the most successful day of my life.
MRS. TILSBURY. Well, it is all the result of your Parade, Mrs. Thom. The Parade seems to have been a more speedy matchmaker than a dancing class.
MRS. THOM. I shall not stay here to be insulted.
MILDRED. Oh, Mrs. Thom, no one is insulting you. Don’t spoil this beautiful day. Let me give you a cup of tea. I am going to celebrate my engagement by giving a little gift to the cause.
MR. MELVIN. I will double it, Mrs. Thom.
MRS. BROWN. (Aside.) It is probably the last.
MRS. THOM. Make the check out to me please, Mary Henrietta Thom. We have no treasurer at present, and I am taking charge of the donations. I won’t stay for tea, thank you. I have an engagement and I know that you and Mr. Melvin have a lot to say to each other. Good-bye, dear child. May you be happy. (She kisses MILDRED, bows to the others, and goes.)
MRS. BROWN. (Aside to MRS. TILSBURY.) Well, there does not seem to be any one left for me but Mr. Van Tousel and his vice-president mother.
MRS. TILSBURY. Cheer up, dear, no one ever made a success out of a vice-presidency except Roosevelt.
MRS. BROWN. Well, I will hope for the best. Mr. Van Tousel, I feel so upset over Cochon’s death. I am afraid to go home alone. Will you see me around the corner? It is not very far. The apartment will be so lonesome without Cochon.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. Certainly, I will see you home, Mrs. Brown. I am coming in to call on you too. I[96] have never been before because somehow I could not reconcile my idea of you as a lovely woman with a pig as a companion.
MRS. TILSBURY. Beauty and the Beast, Mr. Van Tousel.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. True, I had forgotten that tale.
MILDRED. How was Cochon killed, Mrs. Brown, or would it make you feel too badly to tell me about it?
MRS. BROWN. He fell out of the automobile and was run over by an automobile coming in the opposite direction. Oh dear.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. Come, Mrs. Brown. Let me give you my arm. Good-afternoon, Mrs. Tilsbury. Thank you for a delightful ride. Best wishes, Miss Tilsbury, and to you, Melvin.
MRS. BROWN. Good-bye, Josephine. I will telephone in the morning.
MRS. TILSBURY. I think I know what it will be about. Good luck to you, Imogene.
(MRS. BROWN and MR. VAN TOUSEL go out.)
MILDRED. Is she going to have a funeral for Cochon?
MR. TILSBURY. No, she sold him to a butcher for twenty-five dollars while Mr. Van Tousel went around the corner to get her sal volatile at a chemist’s. Cochon was killed at a convenient place,—right opposite a butcher’s shop. Then she closed at once with the people in the other automobile for fifty dollars for all damages. Good business woman, Mrs. Brown. Good friend for you, Josephine, but she’ll do you some day.
MRS. TILSBURY. Well, as my duties as a chaperone[97] seem to be over, I think I shall return to my art. You will dine with us to-night, will you not, Mr. Melvin? We shall be quite en famille.
MR. MELVIN. Thank you, I should like to very much.
MR. TILSBURY. Well, I am off to the Club. See you later, Melvin.
(MR. and MRS. TILSBURY go out.)
MR. MELVIN. Hereafter I am going to change the war-cry to the singular, and say, “Votes for one woman.”
MILDRED. And I shall say, “Votes for one man.”
(Curtain.)
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources.
Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added, when a predominant preference was found in the original book.
Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.
Pg 43: ‘Do you members’ replaced by ‘Do your members’.
Pg 60: ‘their boots backened’ replaced by ‘their boots blackened’.
Pg 78: ‘Enter MELVIN . . . speaking.’ replaced by ‘(Enter MELVIN . . . speaking.)’.
Pg 81: ‘MR. VAN TOUSEL enters.’ replaced by ‘(MR. VAN TOUSEL enters.)’.