When Marjorie was at last alone with him she found him in a state of
extreme mental stimulation. "Your speech," he said, "was all right. I
didn't know you could speak like that, Marjorie. But it soared like the
dove above the waters. Waters! I never heard such a flood of rubbish....
You know, it's a mistake to _mass_ women. It brings out something
silly.... It affected Buzard as badly as any one. The extraordinary
thing is they have a case, if only they'd be quiet. Why did you get them
together?"
"It's our local branch."
"Yes, but _why?_"
"Well, if they talk about things--Discussions like this clear up their
minds."
"Discussion! It wasn't discussion."
"Oh! it was a beginning."
"Chatter of that sort isn't the beginning of discussion, it's the end.
It's the death-rattle. Nobody was meeting the thoughts of any one. I
admit Buzard, who's a man, talked the worst rubbish of all. That
Primitive Matriarchate of his! So it isn't sex. I've noticed before that
the men in this movement of yours are worse than the women. It isn't
sex. It's something else. It's a foolishness. It's a sort of
irresponsible looseness." He turned on her gravely. "You ought not to
get all these people here. It's contagious. Before you know it you'll
find your own mind liquefy and become enthusiastic and slop about.
You'll begin to talk monomania about Mr. Asquith."
"But it's a great movement, Rag, even if incidentally they say and do
silly things!"
"My dear! aren't I feminist? Don't I want women fine and sane and
responsible? Don't I want them to have education, to handle things, to
vote like men and bear themselves with the gravity of men? And these
meetings--all hat and flutter! These displays of weak, untrained,
hysterical vehemence! These gatherings of open-mouthed impressionable
young girls to be trained in incoherence! You can't go on with it!"
Marjorie regarded him quietly for a moment. "I must go on with
something," she said.
"Well, not this."
"Then _what?_"
"Something sane."
"Tell me what."
"It must come out of yourself."
Marjorie thought sullenly for a moment. "Nothing comes out of myself,"
she said.
"I don't think you realize a bit what my life has become," she went on;
"how much I'm like some one who's been put in a pleasant, high-class
prison."
"This house! It's your own!"
"It doesn't give me an hour's mental occupation in the day. It's all
very well to say I might do more in it. I can't--without absurdity. Or
expenditure. I can't send the girl away and start scrubbing. I can't
make jam or do ornamental needlework. The shops do it better and
cheaper, and I haven't been trained to it. I've been trained _not_ to do
it. I've been brought up on games and school-books, and fed on mixed
ideas. I can't sit down and pacify myself with a needle as women used to
do. Besides, I not only detest doing needlework but I hate it--the sort
of thing a woman of my kind does anyhow--when it's done. I'm no artist.
I'm not sufficiently interested in outside things to spend my time in
serious systematic reading, and after four or five novels--oh, these
meetings are better than that! You see, you've got a life--too much of
it--_I_ haven't got enough. I wish almost I could sleep away half the
day. Oh! I want something _real_, Rag; something more than I've got." A
sudden inspiration came to her. "Will you let me come to your laboratory
and work with you?"
She stopped abruptly. She caught up her own chance question and pointed
it at him, a vitally important challenge. "Will you let me come to your
laboratory and work?" she repeated.
Trafford thought. "No," he said.
"Why not?"
"Because I'm in love with you. I can't think of my work when you're
about.... And you're too much behind. Oh my dear! don't you see how
you're behind?" He paused. "I've been soaking in this stuff of mine for
ten long years."
"Yes," assented Marjorie flatly.
He watched her downcast face, and then it lifted to him with a helpless
appeal in her eyes, and lift in her voice. "But look here, Rag!" she
cried--"what on earth am I to _DO?_"