I did not remain unconscious long. When I revived, I was lying on some
wraps which were spread upon the ground near where I had stood, and
gentle hands were bathing my forehead. I opened my eyes, and saw that
two women were kneeling over me with solicitous faces, while a third,
a commanding brunette, stood a little way off watching us. The rest of
the procession were returning across the bridge toward the women’s home.
The first thought that came into my mind as I opened my eyes and saw
the gentle faces hovering over me, was that henceforth I should love
all women, that as a sex they were forever entitled to the deep and
admiring admiration and affection of all men. Until a new and more
humane social order should be safely established, I would patiently
bide my time without license or anarchy, but no power on earth should
prevent me from loyally regarding every woman as my sister from that
time forth. I murmured confused thanks for their kindness, and arose in
deep embarrassment.
“Are you well enough to go to your home?” said the young woman who had
been watching us. Her manner was that of sincere solicitude, unmixed
with either embarrassment or affectation.
“Yes, thank you,” I said, and turned briskly on my heel; but I had gone
but a few steps when my feet began to falter; my knees were strangely
weak.
“I think you had better see him safely home,” said the brunette to the
two women under whose ministrations I had revived. Weak as I was I
could not refuse, and the two women, gently taking each an arm, began
to slowly walk with me toward Mr. Lister’s house.
Many times during the past few days, as the reader knows, it had seemed
to me that I must be dreaming, such was the astounding strangeness of
my surroundings. Let him then imagine what a wildly preposterous vision
it must have seemed to me, Rodney Carford, to be escorted by two women
toward a home in a town in which woman had utterly forsaken man. To be
thus escorted, too, on the eve of the casting of a ballot which was to
decide the perpetuity of the human race!
To add to the overpowering strangeness of my situation, I suddenly
realized that the two women who were accompanying me toward Mr.
Lister’s home belonged to the two most injured classes in the women’s
panorama. One was an old maid, and the other had been a courtesan.
This discovery revived in my mind the deep remorse which I had felt in
beholding their pathetic pageant. I remember weakly trying to decide in
my mind which of the two had been most cruelly injured by man. I longed
to throw my arms around them both, but I scarcely dared to look into
their faces as we walked slowly along. At last, as I stood at the door
of Mr. Lister’s house, I raised my eyes to theirs. “Forgive me,” I said
to the old maid. “Forgive me,” I said to the courtesan. They made no
reply, but a serene light, unmixed with any bitterness, shone in their
eyes and gave me comfort. As they turned away after leaving me at the
door of Mr. Lister’s house, I followed them wistfully with my eyes.
They had wound their arms about each other like sisters, and without a
single backward glance, were walking toward the bridge.
I have no recollection how I passed the night that ensued, but I
suppose I must have slept. I remember that Mr. Lister had retired when
I entered the house, and as I felt no inclination for conversation, it
was a relief to me to seek the solitude of my room.
The day on which the ballots were to be cast dawned as all other days
of great import to the human days have dawned. Although it was a day
that was to decide a question never before conceived of, and one that
involved the possible extinction of the human race, it was not marked
by any demonstration of any kind. On the contrary, the conspicuous
thing about the day, making it totally unlike any previous balloting
in the world’s history, was the noiselessness with which everything
was conducted. There were no harangues upon the street corners, no
attempt at persuasion anywhere, not even any inquiry among men as to
how individuals were going to vote. Each man seemed wholly wrapped in
his own thoughts, but there was a stern directness of manner, a total
absence of any appearance of vacillation, that showed that the time for
the decision was ripe.
The system of voting was the Australian, and how each man was to vote
was a secret known only to his own soul. After spending some time with
Mr. Lister in visiting the polling-places, I returned to the house to
pass the day as best I could in his library.
At noon Mr. Lister returned with an interesting piece of news. The
polls were to close at four o’clock, and at that hour the women were
to assemble in the great Auditorium which formed one of the group of
buildings which they occupied. There they were to await the report of
the decision of the ballots, and any one was free to go there to hear
it. To pass the time till then I reminded Mr. Lister of his promise to
give me “Zugassent’s Discovery.” He placed the book in my hands, and,
having arranged with me to meet him at the Woman’s Auditorium at four
o’clock, he left the house to attend to business pertaining to the
balloting.
It was with a feeling of rare curiosity, not unmixed with profound awe,
that I opened a book which promised to have made a discovery of value
in a field in which no other discoverer had ever had the temerity to
set foot. That this discovery was as innocent of evil as the white
light of day, and profoundly scientific as well, that it was in keeping
with the noble advancement of man in all other departments of wisdom,
I was assured both from what I had been told of the character of
Zugassent, and because it commended itself to such pure-minded lovers
as Justin Lister and Allegra Alliston. But I had not the slightest idea
of what this discovery might be. I accordingly plunged into the book
as one plunges on a summer’s day in a stream of whose depth he has no
conception.
As I got deeper and deeper into “Zugassent’s Discovery,” my interest
became absorbingly, wonderfully, and overpoweringly intense. I forgot
all about the Great Woman’s Strike. I forgot where I was. I forgot
everything which had happened in the exciting days through which I
had just passed. Hour after hour flew by, and as I turned page after
page there was gradually unfolded to my wondering perceptions a
discovery that appeared to be the perfection of chivalry, the essence
of unselfishness, the culminating and consummate flower of the true
refinement of all ages. Civilizing and ennobling man beyond all
precedent, it seemed to lift the primeval curse from woman not less
really than if it had been done by an Omnipotent fiat. With breathless
interest I read on. Once only I paused, as the question rose in my
mind, “Was it feasible?” At that critical moment a clock struck, and
I counted the strokes. Five o’clock! Like a flash the recollection of
everything came back to me. It was an hour after the time at which I
had promised to meet Mr. Lister at the Woman’s Auditorium! Thrusting
“Zugassent’s Discovery” into my pocket, I seized my hat, and leaving
the house, hurried toward the bridge which led to the women’s home.
[Illustration]