Margaret did not, of course, think for an instant of giving up her
friendship with Catherine Hamilton; but when she suggested the Hamilton
family and a few other people whom she liked, but whose names were not
on the invitation list, be invited to their big reception, she met with
an opposition to which she was obliged to yield.
"To invite such folks as those Hamiltons, that don't even own their own
home, _little_ as it is--well, it would just lower the tone of the
party, that's all!" Jennie pronounced.
"But I'll be responsible for keeping up the tone of the party!"
Margaret gayly volunteered.
She quickly recognized, however, that in a matter like this,
coöperation or compromise between the Leitzels and her was impossible
and that she must stand aside and let them give their party in their
own way. She carried her self-obliteration so far as to even refrain
from suggesting, on the auspicious day of the party, the removal from
the dining-room sideboard of the life-sized, navy-blue glass owl which
was a water pitcher, and the two orange-coloured glass dishes that
stood on easels on either side of the owl.
She did spend rather a troubled half-hour in wondering how, since the
invitations were of course in her name and Daniel's, Catherine Hamilton
would regard the fact that she was not invited. But the absurdity of
the Leitzels' delusion that they could withhold or bestow social
recognition upon her friend must be so manifest to Catherine that
surely she could not take it seriously. It seemed to Margaret that to
let this trifling, vulgar episode cast even a shadow upon the ideal
friendship into which she and Catherine were growing was to belittle
and dishonour it.
"I can't offer her any explanation. I can only trust to her
large-minded understanding of my situation."
She had an uncomfortable consciousness that it was a situation which
Catherine herself would not have tolerated.
"Even 'Hiram's Lizzie' considers it unbearable," she reflected. "Why,
I can't offer any least hospitality to any one unless my sisters-in-law
approve of the individual! I can't ask Catherine Hamilton to dine or
lunch with me! Which means, of course, that I can't accept her
hospitality. It's rather grotesque!"
Yet when she considered how devotedly Daniel's sisters served him, how
minutely they attended to every little detail of his comfort, in a way
most men, she was sure, would have found harassing, but which to Daniel
seemed essential to his well-being, she knew that he would never be
able, without great misery, to live apart from them, and that he
certainly would not entertain the idea for a moment.
"And as for them, their occupation, their purpose in life, would be
taken from them, if they didn't have Daniel to fuss over."
Two days before the date of the reception the evening papers gave New
Munich a lurid description, furnished by Jennie and Daniel, of every
detail of it, the Philadelphia caterer and the Lancaster florist being
advertised in headlines that made Margaret's flesh creep. She had a
vision of the consternation of her Charleston relatives should they
ever see that paper, and she was thankful that the distance that
separated her from them precluded the possibility of their learning of
her association with such blatant vulgarity--unless (awful thought!)
Daniel should be visited with the idea of mailing them a marked copy!
When, the next afternoon, Margaret was out for a country walk with
Catherine Hamilton after office hours, she decided that it would be
better to refer casually to the prospective party, rather than so
obviously avoid mentioning it.
"Fancy me to-morrow night, Catherine, lined up with Mr. Leitzel and his
sisters for two or three hours to shake hands with over one hundred
people and make to each one precisely the same inspired remark: 'Mrs.
Blank, how do you do? I am glad to see you. I am so glad you got
here!' If I could only vary it a bit! But no, I shall have to say
those self-same words exactly one hundred and seven times. Isn't it
deplorable?"
A faint tremor in her voice as she asked the question caused her friend
to turn and look into her face; and something in the strained
expression of the beautiful eyes which Catherine Hamilton was growing
to love moved this rather austere young woman to a sudden pity; for
Catherine, though a girl of keen wit and of a strong, independent
spirit, was full of feeling; a combination of qualities which gave her
a charm for those of her own sex that she did not have for men.
Obeying an impulse of her heart, she suddenly stopped in the woodsy
path where they walked, put her arms around Margaret and clasped her
close.
And Margaret, at the unexpected touch of understanding love, almost the
first she had ever known in her life, held herself rigid in her
friend's embrace that she might not burst into passionate crying, while
she clenched her teeth to choke down the pent-up emotion which in this
moment could hardly keep its bounds.
She released herself quickly, and for an instant turned away.
When she again spoke, her voice was even and natural. She had not let
herself shed one betraying tear.
"You promised to tell me, Catherine, about that career of yours, you
know, to which your present work is a stepping-stone, and what _my_
part is to be in it."
Catherine, eager to launch forth upon her hobby to her new friend,
glowed with enthusiasm as she talked.
"I have come from a race, Margaret, that for generations have been
teachers, college professors, ministers, public school
superintendents--the pedagogue seems to be born in every one of us.
And it's in me strong. So I am going to devote my life to the
establishing of a school for girls in which all the training shall
converge to one ideal--that of service--as over against that of the
usual finishing school, whatever that ideal is! And, Margaret, here's
my point: I'm going to make my school fashionable, a formidable rival
of those futile, idiotic institutions in which girls from the country
are taught how they must enter a drawing-room or step into an
automobile, and are quite incidentally instructed, cautiously and
delicately, in every 'branch' in the whole category of learning, so
that they may be able to 'converse' on any subject whatever without
betraying the awful depths of their ignorance!--the vast expanse of
their shallowness. My school shall teach girls that life is meant for
earnest work, because work means physical and spiritual health and
happiness. My school shall make girls ashamed to admit they've ever
been to the other sort of 'finishing' school. It's going to put that
sort of school out of business, Margaret! I tell you, the coming woman
is going to be the efficient woman. The unqualified of our sex will
take a back seat, just as unqualified men do."
"I'm of course entirely in sympathy with your idea, Catherine, but I
hope your 'service' education includes home-making and motherhood.
Leave us a few of the old-fashioned women, won't you?"
"My dear, don't worry about homes and husbands and babies. It is the
futile fashionable woman, not the disciplined, thoughtful, college-bred
woman, that refuses to have children. I've never known an earnest
woman that didn't love children and yearn for motherhood. The trouble
is, men are afraid of the earnest kind. They marry the frivolous,
parasitical women, who live upon them like lotus flowers, sapping their
vitality and giving nothing in return. Yet you'll find men opposing
college education for women, not realizing that a woman who has stood
the discipline of a college course has developed a force of character
that does not shrink for a moment from the further discipline and
burden of motherhood, but welcomes it as her privilege and blessing,
while the so-called 'society woman' will none of it. You know,"
Catherine continued, "in the days when home-making was necessarily an
absorbing occupation, it lent to women a dignity of character quite
wanting in our present-day large class of feminine parasites, a class
that has grown out of the new and easier domestic conditions and the
too-great concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. That's the
explanation of woman's latter-day restlessness; she's fighting against
the deterioration which comes with idleness and too-easy conditions of
life. She's fighting for her very life! _That's_ what the 'feminist
movement' means."
"And my part in your fine scheme?" asked Margaret, her face glowing
with responsive enthusiasm.
"As a rich and influential woman, you will countenance and patronize my
school; perhaps send me your daughters; be a stock-holder in it; you
can even be fitting yourself, meantime, if you like, to be a teacher in
it."
"But, Catherine--'rich and influential?' I? I am neither!"