John Vassar’s sleep had been fitful and unsatisfying. Through hours of
half-conscious brooding and dreaming he had seen the face of Virginia
Holland. He had thus far found no time for social frivolities. The air
of America was just the tonic needed to transform the tragic inheritance
of the Old World into a passion for work that had practically ruled
women out of the scheme of things.
He had dreamed of a home of his own in the dim future--yes--when the
work of his career, the work he had planned for his country should have
been done. This had been his life, the breath he breathed, his
inspiration and religion--to lead an American renaissance of patriotism.
America had never had a national spirit. His ambition was to fire the
soul of thoughtless millions into a conscious love of country which
would insure her glorious destiny.
A woman’s smile had upset this dream. Through the night he had tried in
vain to throw off the obsession. At daylight he had fallen into a sleep
of sheer exhaustion. It was nine o’clock before he was roused by a
gentle knock on his door.
Marya’s voice was calling somewhere out of space.
“Uncle John--breakfast is waiting--may I come in?”
“All right--dearie--break right in!” he groaned.
“And I’ve a letter for you--a special letter--”
The sleeper was awake now, alert, eager--
“A special letter?”
“A big black man brought it just now. He’s waiting in the hall--says
Miss Holland would like an answer.”
Vassar seized the letter and read with a broad grin. The handwriting was
absurdly delicate. The idea that a suffragette could have written it was
ridiculous!
MY DEAR MR. VASSAR:
I’m heartily ashamed of myself for losing my temper last night.
Please call for me at ten o’clock. I wish a little heart-to-heart
talk before we go to your Flag Festival. Please answer by the
bearer.
VIRGINIA HOLLAND.
Vassar drew Marya into his arms and kissed her rapturously.
“You’re an angel--you’ve brought me a message from the skies. Run now
and tell the big black man--Miss Holland’s butler--to thank her for me
and say that I’ll be there promptly at ten. Run, darling! Run!”
The child refused to stir without another kiss which she repeated on
both his cheeks. She stopped at the door and waved another.
“Hurry, Uncle John--please--we’re all starved.”
“Down in five minutes!” he cried.
The weariness of the night’s fitful sleep was gone. The world was
suddenly filled with light and music.
“What the devil’s come over me!” he muttered, astonished at the
persistent grin his mirror reflected. “At this rate I can see my
finish--I’ll be the secretary of the Suffragette Campaign Committee
before the week’s over--bah!”
* * * * *
Old Peter, the black butler, ushered him into the parlor with a stately
bow.
“Miss Virginia be right down, sah. She say she des finishin’ her
breakfus’--yassah!”
Vassar seated himself with a sense of triumph. She must have written
that note in bed. He flattered himself someone else had not slept well.
He hoped not.
Her greeting was gracious, but strictly business-like--he thought a
little too business-like to be entirely convincing.
She motioned him to resume his seat and drew one for herself close
beside. She sat down in a quiet determined manner that forbade
sentimental reflections and began without preliminaries.
“We lost track of our subject last night, Mr. Vassar, in an absurd
personal discussion. I’ve asked you to come back this morning to make a
determined effort to win you for our cause--”
She paused, leaned forward and smiled persuasively.
“We need you. Your influence over the foreign-born population in New
York would be enormous. I see by this morning’s paper an enthusiastic
account of your work among the children. You are leading a renaissance
of American patriotism. Good! So am I--a renaissance of the principles
of the Declaration of Independence. ‘_We hold these truths to be
self-evident_: that all men are created equal! that they are endowed by
their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure those rights,
governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from
the consent of the governed.’ Come now, I appeal to your sense of
justice. What right have you to govern me without my consent? Am I not
created your equal?”
Her eloquence was all but resistless. The word of surrender was on his
lips, when the voice of an honest manhood spoke within.
“You’re not convinced. The magnetism of a woman’s sex is calling. You’re
a poltroon to surrender your principles to such a force. In her soul a
true woman would despise you for it.”
She saw his hesitation and leaned closer, holding him with her luminous
eyes.
“Come now, in your heart of hearts you know that I am your equal?”
Something in the tones of her voice broke the spell--just a trace of the
platform intonation and the faintest suggestion of the politician. The
voice within again spoke. There was another reason why he should be true
to his sense of right. He owed it to this woman who had moved him so
profoundly. He must be true to the noblest and best that was in him.
He met her gaze in silence for a moment and spoke with quiet emphasis.
“If I followed my personal inclinations, Miss Holland, I would agree to
anything you ask. You’re too downright, too honest and earnest to wish
or value such a shallow victory--am I not right?”
The faintest tinge of red colored Virginia’s cheeks.
“Of course,” she answered slowly, “I wish the help of the best that’s in
you or nothing--”
“Good! I felt that instinctively. I could fence and hedge and trim with
the ordinary politician. With all respect to your pretensions, you’re
not a politician at all. You’re just a charming, beautiful woman
entering a field for which God never endowed you either physically,
temperamentally or morally--”
Virginia frowned and lifted her head with a little gesture of contempt.
“I must be honest. I must play the game squarely with you! I’m sorely
tempted to cheat. But there’s too much at stake. You ask if you are not
my equal? I answer promptly and honestly. I know that you are more--you
are my superior. For this reason I would save you from the ballot. It is
not a question of right, it is a question of hard and difficult duty.
The ballot is not a right or a privilege. It is a solemn and dangerous
duty. The ballot is force--physical force. It is a modern substitute for
the bayonet--a device which has been used to prevent much civil strife.
And yet man never votes away his right to a revolution. The Declaration
of Independence embodies this fact--‘_Whenever any form of government
becomes destructive of those ends, it is the right of the people to
alter or abolish it_--’ There you have the principle in full. Back of
every ballot is a bayonet and the red blood of the man who wields it--”
“But we will substitute reason for force!”
“How, dear lady? _Government is force_--never was anything else--never
can be until man is redeemed and this world is peopled by angels. Man is
in the zoological period of his development. Scratch the most cultured
man beneath the skin and you find the savage. Scratch the proudest
nation of Europe beneath the skin and you find the elemental brute. I do
not believe in forcing our mothers, our sisters, our wives and
sweethearts into the blood-soaked mud of battle trenches. That work is
the dangerous and difficult duty of man. So the ballot, on which peace
or war depends, is his duty--not his right or privilege--”
“Give us the ballot and we will make war impossible,” Virginia broke in.
“How? If women vote with their men, their voting will mean nothing. We
merely multiply the total by two. We do not change results. If women
vote against the men on an issue of war or peace, will men submit to
such a feminine decision? Certainly not. Force and force alone can
decide the issue of force. Back of every ballot is a bayonet or there’s
nothing back of it. The breath of revolution will drive such meaningless
ballots as chaff before a whirlwind--”
“We’ll stop your blood-stained revolutions!” Virginia cried.
“All right. Do so and you stop the progress of humanity. The American
Revolution was blood-stained. It gave us freedom. The Civil War was
blood-stained. It freed this nation of the curse of slavery and sealed
the Union for all time. There are good wars and bad wars. True war is
the inevitable conflict between two irreconcilable moral principles. One
is right--the other wrong. One must live--the other die. Wrong may
triumph for a day. Right must win in the end or else the universe is
ruled by the Devil, not by God. You cannot abolish war until the Devil
is annihilated and God rules in the souls and lives of men and in their
governments as well.”
For the moment the woman was swept from the moorings of her pet
arguments. She quickly recovered.
“We are going to make America the moral and spiritual leader of
mankind!” she cried with elation.
“Yes, I know. In the Parliament of Man, the Federation of the
World--your poet’s dream as far removed from the beastly realities of
life today as Heaven is from Hell--”
“We are going to make this dream a living fact in the world--and free
America shall lead the way--”
“And how will you begin?”
“By setting the proud example of building our national life on spiritual
realities first, not on guns and forts. We will begin the disarmament of
the world--”
“And end your movement by surrender to the armed bullies of Europe!”
“At least my dream is a dream,” Virginia laughed, “yours a silly
nightmare. But I give you up for the present. I see that Ephraim is
joined to his idols. My mission is a failure. At least I thank you for
your candor. I shall have to turn you over now to the tender mercies of
Mr. Waldron and the Executive Committee. Come, we’ll see your flags and
the children. The sight will be restful after our battle.”
She rose quickly, led the way to the hall, adjusted the little turban on
the mass of auburn blond hair and opened the door.
Vassar passed out with a queer sense of defeat. He had vanquished her in
the argument. But the trouble was she had not argued. She had merely
demanded his submission without argument.