Fortunately Acquilla had not yet returned from Europa. Before the
jealous eyes of Mag, we sought to conceal our happiness, foolishly
believing, as lovers will, that they can look on each other without
betraying the kindling in their glances. My head was still giddy with
the fantasy of this miraculous day with my bewildering Dianne, alone
in the clear ether, even the world shut out by the fleecy canopies
of the clouds beneath us. But the moment I had gone to my room the
sternness of my resolve returned. And a little guilty, like a neophyte
who has forgotten his vows, I consecrated myself anew, determined to
conquer my passion for Dianne, if it should begin to interfere with the
accomplishment of my purpose.
When I descended to the bath, Mag was waiting for me with eyes red with
weeping. I determined to make sure of her loyalty, so laying my hand on
her shoulder, I said gently:
“You are my friend, are you not, Mag? And you would never do me any
harm?”
The poor girl was struck all in a heap. Her glance dropped before mine
and bursting into tears she vowed that never, never, would she betray
me! I rewarded her with a smile and a pat on the shoulder and descended
gratefully into this healing bath of all the senses. There I spent
some time turning over in my mind my future activities as a militant
suffragist.
I had scarcely finished dressing when Acquilla returned. At the first
glance I saw all the anxiety which was torturing her imagination.
Acquilla was jealous as only a woman can be, to whom love comes late
in life. During her going to and fro she must have had time to turn
over the sudden appearance of Dianne, and the intuitions of a jealous
woman had led her to the correct solution that Dulcina had been used
as a blind to screen my true feelings for Dianne. But perceiving the
lugubriousness of my expression, she had a momentary flash of hope.
Perhaps we had quarreled!
“Something is wrong, dear?” she said, holding me off and searching
anxiously in my face.
“You are right,” I replied sternly, “something is wrong. But something
that cannot be dismissed in a word. If you please, we will wait until
after dinner.”
“You are angry with me?” she exclaimed with such sharp suffering in her
voice, that, realizing all the torments of jealousy she must have been
suffering during the day, I could not resist a movement of sympathy. I
pressed her hand in mine and allowed a smile to soften the severity of
my look.
“Not with you personally,” I replied, shaking my head. “But much will
depend on your attitude.”
“You cannot tell me now?”
“Wait.”
She was devoured with anxiety during dinner, for she scarcely touched
her extracts, while I, on the contrary, after the fashion of men,
fortified myself copiously. But all at once the perplexity in her eyes
cleared and sitting up unexpectedly she cried:
“Ah, I know, you have seen the Clubs!”
“Your intuitions are right,” I said sternly to avoid explanations. “I
have seen that shameful prison you call a Club, I have seen what you
call men assembled in a football arena; and I have learned precisely
what humiliating positions they occupy in your state.”
My anger brought back her calm. Since the contest was to be on
intellectual grounds she recovered her authority.
“I suspected it,” she said acidly. “Dianne has done a wrong, a
dangerous thing. I myself would have guided you when the time was ripe.
But this premature introduction before you have a true conception of
what our civilization has accomplished has, as I foresaw, worked on
your sentimental nature.”
I laughed an angry ironical laugh.
“You call my reactions sentimental, indeed!”
“Certainly. What do you object to? You have learned that men are
kept simply as breeders, privileged to be free of all care and
responsibility. And you are in a rage. Why? Is it because we have taken
from the male instinct the inhibitions that he rebelled against in your
day? Come, let us be frank! How many men you knew would have rebelled
against this existence they now enjoy?”
“My dear Acquilla!” I started to say, then coughed and stopped. I
realized that I was meeting the adroit feminine mind and that above
everything I must keep cool and avoid being put on the defensive. I
rose, took a turn about the room and sat down.
“Let us discuss it calmly,” I said, biting my lips.
“Calmly.”
“It is not simply that you have made specialists of my sex,” I said
with an attempt at irony, “but the cold-blooded way in which you carry
out your intentions!”
“As for instance?”
“You have gone a little further than the insects which you admire so
much. I suppose I should return thanks for that. But I do not. I have
now recognized that sentimentality plays no part in a woman’s nature.
But I was not prepared for the machine-like efficiency--”
“What are you talking about, my dear man?”
I stopped, composed myself, and blurted out:
“Do you deny that at the age of thirty-five men are disposed of in a
sort of slaughter of the drones?”
“Oh, I see,” said Acquilla. She looked at me with one of her irritating
smiles and replied, “But how did you treat my sex when you had a
man-made civilization?”
“What? What?”
“I asked you a simple question, dear. How did you treat my sex when you
had a man-made civilization? After thirty-five what was there in life
for the generality of women?”
“Their homes, their children,” I answered pontifically.
“The drudgery of the home, the servitude to their children. No,
Bogardus, at thirty-five or before when men were still young, women
were ended. They had lost their value as women and were esteemed
according to their value as nurses and housekeepers. The final cruelty
you inflicted on them was to let them grow old. We are much more
humane.”
“You look on history as simply a war of the sexes?” I said hotly, for
the degradation of my sex as I successively comprehended it, made it
difficult to restrain my anger.
“Of course. So long as civilization had to rise through physical force,
the male ascendency was inevitable. Granted. But the moment that
scientific discoveries did away with the necessity of multitudes for
cannon fodder and replaced blind hands by intelligent machines women
were freed from their need of your physical protection. In the last
phases of your civilization, though you did not perceive the underlying
conflict, were you not aware that economically, and in a measure
morally, the women you rated as the weaker sex were really the despots
of your existences?”
Some curious trick of habit made me glance over my shoulder for the
shadow of my mother-in-law before replying:
“When you say morally, I do not entirely agree. Economically, yes,
there is no doubt that the expenditure of women for luxuries was out
of all proportion. But allowing the past to lie,” I said, striving to
be diplomatic, “tell me, Acquilla, in your opinion, is this warfare of
the sexes, as you call it, to endure forever? Do you not in some future
state of society conceive of the possibility of men and women equally
intelligent living together in harmony? For, after all, without too
much vanity, do you not prefer to converse on equal terms as you have
with me, than to treat men simply as playthings of your passions?”
“Possibly,” she said after a moment, “what you suggest is in the future
when we have completely achieved the freedom of the individual, but the
moment is not now.”
“Why not? Men educated by women will be different,” I suggested.
“That is not quite honest,” said Acquilla reprovingly. “The nature of
man cannot be changed in a few hundred years.”
“Why not experiment? What is there to fear now that the age of reason
is so completely achieved?”
“The passion for conquest. Even today, despite all our discoveries in
the field of Eugenics the male child’s first impulse is to wrestle
down his companions. What is the passion for sport you have just
witnessed--more intense than ever--but an evolution of the desire to
kill? You men seek to destroy your opponents not to play with them. You
make of your games battles. You hate those with whom you contend.”
“That is an exaggeration,” I interrupted, and then stopped. “At least
in my day it was only when we were young, when in school and college
we were given an exaggerated idea of winning for the glorification
of a mass ideal. Besides, even then, we did not take ourselves too
seriously.”
“Then why this hysterical frenzy you saw in the mob of spectators--a
frenzy like the blood lust of the Roman arena? No, no, dear man, put
away your pride and prejudices. They are out of place. You are a man
of the past with a singularly honest and reasoning brain, but don’t
deceive yourself. The nature of man is the same today as yesterday or
tomorrow. If we should listen to the sentimentalist and restore him to
equality in our civilization, the world would return to war within a
generation.”
Was it true? I was silent, troubled, finding no conviction in my
self-interrogatory.
Acquilla was too clever to pursue her advantage. She rose and coming to
me took my hand.
“I wished to spare you all this, dear,” she said in a swift change of
mood. “My only thought was to lead you gradually to a perception of why
the great adventure on which we are embarked cannot now be entrusted to
a divided authority.”
“Answer me this, Acquilla,” I said looking at her fixedly, “am I a free
agent or am I simply your prisoner, delightful as that sentence may be?”
“That is a problem that is still to be decided by the Supreme Council,”
she replied. “A very perplexing problem. Whether you will be interned
or treated as a distinguished visitor depends on you, my dear. Now do
you understand all my solicitude?”
The thought that I could play upon my hold over her to add a new ally,
occurred to me. I said in a conciliatory tone, though I must confess
with a certain pleasant provocation:
“My lovely Amazon, don’t you see that it is just because I am unlike
your foolish males of today--that it is my intelligence which attracts
you.”
“To be truthful,” she said looking at me boldly, “it is that, and a
good deal more than that.”
I acknowledged the compliment with a smile.
“Then to continue in a truthful mood, is it not the man of yesterday
that is the true mate of the woman of today?”
“I can admit all that between us two, yes--and yet I can deny it in its
public application,” replied Acquilla with that annoying obstinacy of
cerebral women that destroys the necessary illusion in romance.
“Still--”
“Oh, foolish man, are you going to spoil everything with your eternal
consistency?” she added, devouring me with eyes that were awake with
passion.
Consistency? No, certainly not! If I had been in love with her, I
should have flung consistency to the winds. But having Dianne in all my
veins, I replied, adroitly:
“My charming Acquilla, I shall not pretend to be more obtuse than I
am. The time has come when we must understand each other. You also
must understand one thing: I am what I am--a man brought up in the
strictest traditions of the Dutch Reformed Church; proud of my name and
my ancestry. No Bogardus has ever temporized or yielded an inch to any
doctrine that would upset the sanctity of marriage--”
To my astonishment Acquilla began to laugh. I cannot describe it as a
complete laugh, but it was undeniably a titter.
“You yourself have taught me the use of irony,” she said noticing my
astonishment. “Really aren’t you a little ridiculous, dear?” she added,
passing her fingers through my hair. “Since marriage no longer exists,
what has the Dutch Reformed Church to do with us?”
I put her hand firmly from me with as much dignity as I could muster
and suddenly inspired, said:
“It means that I keep my standards as you keep yours. When I take my
mate it shall be for life. If you love me as your attitude implies--”
“Love you! Yes, for the first time,” she cried breathlessly.
“Stop!” I said, as a maiden might have interposed. “I ask no
confession, but understand this, Acquilla: no matter how dazzling your
position, I refuse to be yours for a day or month. Your past is not
my affair, but in the future there must be no other man. Your free
companion for life--never your plaything for an hour!” And as she stood
staring at me absolutely dumfounded, I added in the best dramatic
manner: “All or nothing!”
With which I escaped for fear of spoiling my climax by an
uncontrollable gasp of laughter. I went to my room and stifled my
hysterical laughter as best I could. But all at once a thought
sobered me. Suppose, blinded by passion, she should agree? Here
was a predicament. I rose and went to the door to lock it. But of
course, in these modern days, bars and bolts did not exist. At last
in despair--for what was I in strength compared with this amazing
Amazon--I drew my bed across the door and lay down.
Twice before I fell off to sleep, I heard her footsteps hesitating
outside, and once--though it might have been my imagination--I thought
someone pressed softly on the door.