Part 22 (1/2)
One day I ran across an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the back of a magazine representing a single wheel with a pair of wings attached to its hub.
It was traveling along without the least difficulty in the world. So was I. The fifth wheel had acquired wings!
CHAPTER XXI
IN THE SEWALL MANSION
In spite of Mrs. Sewall's crowded engagement calendar, she was a woman with very few close friends. She was very clever; she could converse ably; she could entertain brilliantly; and yet she had been unable to weave herself into any little circle of loyal companions. She was terribly lonely sometimes.
For the first half-dozen weeks our relations were strictly official. And then one day just as I was leaving to walk back to my rooms as usual, Mrs. Sewall, who was just getting into her automobile, asked me if I would care to ride with her. The lights were all aglow on Fifth Avenue.
We joined the parade in luxurious state. This was what I once had dreamed of--to be seated beside Mrs. F. Rockridge Sewall in her automobile, creeping slowly along Fifth Avenue at dusk. Life works out its patterns for people cunningly, I think. I made some such remark as I sat there beside Mrs. Sewall.
”How? Tell me,” she said, ”how has it worked out its pattern cunningly for you?”
We had never mentioned our former relations. I didn't intend to now.
”Oh,” I said, side-stepping what was really in my mind, ”cunningly, because here I am, in a last winter's hat and a sweater for warmth underneath my old summer's suit, and yet I'm happy. If life has woven me into such a design as that--I think it's very clever of it.”
”_Are_ you happy?” questioned Mrs. Sewall.
”Yes, I believe I am,” I replied honestly. ”That, of course, isn't saying I am not just a little lonely sometimes. But I'm interested. I'm terribly interested, Mrs. Sewall.”
”Well, but weren't you interested when you were a debutante? You referred to having been a debutante, you remember, once. Weren't you, as you say, terribly interested _then_?”
”Yes, in a way, I suppose I was. But I believe _then_ I was interested in myself, and what was good for my social success, and now--it sounds painfully self-righteous--but now I'm interested in things outside. I'm interested in what's good for the success of the world.” I blushed in the dusk. It sounded so affected. ”I mean,” I said, ”I'm interested in reforms and unions, and suffrage, and things like that. I used to be so awfully individualistic.”
”Individualistic! Where do you run across these ideas? A girl like you.
Parasitism, and suffrage! Is my secretary a suffragette?” she asked me smilingly.
”Well,” I replied, ”I believe that woman's awakening is one of the greatest forces at work today for human emanc.i.p.ation.”
”Well, well,” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Sewall. ”So my secretary thinks if women vote, all the wrinkles in this old world will be ironed out.”
I knew I was being made fun of a little, but I was willing nevertheless.
”The influence suffrage will have on politics will not be so important as the influence it will have on ethics and conventions,” I replied, ”and I believe it will have such a beneficial influence that it will be worth Uncle Sam's trouble to engage a few more clerks to count the increased number of ballots.”
”Well--well. Is that so?” smiled Mrs. Sewall, amused. ”Do you think women competent to sit on juries, become just judges, and make unbiased and fair decisions? What have you to say to that, Miss Enthusiast?”
”Women are untrained now, of course, but in time they will learn the manners of positions of trust, as men have, through being ridiculed in print, through bitter experiences of various kinds. If they are given a few years at it, they'll learn that they can't afford to be hasty and pettish in public positions, as they could in their own little narrow spheres at home. A child who first goes to school is awfully new at it.
He sulks, cries, wants his own way; he hasn't learned how to work with others. Neither have women yet, but suffrage will help us toward it.”
”I had no idea you were such a little enthusiast. Come, don't you want to have tea with me and my friend Mrs. Scot-Williams? I'm to meet her at the Carl. She enjoys a girl with ideas.”
”In this?” I indicated my suit. We were drawing up to the lighted restaurant, where costly lace veiled from the street candle-lighted tables.
”In that?” Mrs. Sewall looked at me and smiled. ”Talk as you have to me, my dear, and she will not see what your soul goes clothed in.”
My enemy--Mrs. Sewall! My almost friend now! She could sting, but she could make honey too. Bittersweet. I went with her to drink some tea.