Robert W. Chambers

“ Willett laughed. "Oh, that's all right. They usually say that. We all came in on probation; the Regents couldn't agree, and some girl always swings the deciding vote as a special favour to herself."
"You don't think they'll kick me out?"
"Not much!" laughed Willett. "First of all, your captor would object—not necessarily for sentimental reasons, but because she caught you; you are hers, her game; she says to herself: 'A poor thing, but mine own!' and hangs to you like grim death. Besides, no woman ever lets any man loose voluntarily. And women haven't changed radically, Mr. Langdon. ”

“ Clear, pure, sweet, the song rang joyously from the tip of the balsam's silver-green spire. He rested his head on one hand and listened.
The song of this bird, the odour of heliotrope, the ruddy sunlight netting the ripples—these, for him, must forever suggest her.
[146] He had curious fancies about her and himself. He knew that, if she ever did turn and look at him out of those lilac-tinted eyes, he must fall in love with her, irrevocably. ”

“ She was a huntress pure and simple, silent, furtive, adroit, intent upon her quarry. There came a kind of fierceness into her concentration; the joy of the chase thrilled her as she crept noiselessly through the woods, describing a circle, crossing the stream far above the sleepy fisherman, gliding, stealing nearer, nearer, until at length she stood in the thicket behind him.
For a moment she waited silently, freeing her net and gathering it in her right hand ready for a deadly cast. Then, pursing up her red lips, she mewed like a cat-bird, three times. ”

“ The girl looked at him sternly.
[90] "No," she said. "For centuries man has mated from sentiment and filled the earth with mental and physical degeneracy. Now woman steps in. It is her turn. And she flings aside precedent, prejudice, and sentiment—for the good of the human race! and joining hands with Science marches forward inexorably toward the millennium!"
The girl was so earnest, so naïve, so emotionally stirred by the picture evoked that she enacted in pretty gestures the allegory of womanhood trampling upon sentimental emotion and turning toward Science with arms outstretched. ”

“ Trinkle waved his hands in desperation.
"Wake up!" he shouted. "Doesn't it strike you as odd that every one of them so far has been Gibsonian perfection itself? Doesn't that seem funny? Doesn't it suggest some connection with the present Franchise strike?"
"It is odd," said Langdon, thoughtfully.
"You notice," bellowed Mr. Trinkle, "that no young man disappears who isn't a physical Adonis, do you? No thin-shanked, stoop-shouldered, scant-haired highbrow has yet vanished. You notice that, don't you, Sayre? Open your mouth and speak! Say anything! Say pip! if you like—only say something!" ”

“ He came every day; and every day, at sundown, she sat sewing by the window behind her heliotrope and mignonette waiting.
Sometimes he caught perch and dace and chub, and she accepted half, never more. Sometimes he caught nothing; and then her clear, humorous eyes bantered him, and sometimes she even rallied him. For it had come to pass in these sunset moments that she was learning to permit herself a friendliness and a confidence for him which was very pleasant to her while it lasted, but, after he had gone, left her with soft lips drooping and gaze remote. ”

“ Lying here flat on my back, I am smiling at Woman! at every individual woman on earth! at this ridiculous feminine uprising, this suffragette revolution—at your National Female Federation Committee; the thousands of local unions; this strike of your entire sex; this general boycott of my sex! ”

“ Hopelessly entangled in the net which enveloped him from head to foot, he flopped about among the dead leaves on the bank of the stream, struggling and kicking like a fly in a cobweb. This he considered humorous.
The lithe figure across the brook continued to view his gyrations with mingled emotions.
She was a boyish young thing with a full-lipped, sensitive mouth, eyes like bluish-black velvet, and clipped hair of a dull gold colour that curled thickly all over a small and beautifully shaped [80] head in little burnished boucles d'or—which description ought to hold the reader for a while. ”

“ A few minutes later, amid a hideous scene of riot, where young men were fleeing distractedly in every direction, where excited young girls were dragging them, struggling and screaming, into cabs, where even the police were rushing hither and thither in desperate search for a place to hide in, the Governor of New York and Professor Elizabeth Challis might have been seen whirling downtown in a taxicab toward the marriage license bureau. ”

“ The unfortunate Military Secretary gulped with fright, buttoned his cutaway coat, crammed his top hat over his ears, and gazed fearfully out of the window, where in the avenue below the riot was still in lively progress. Terrified young men fled in every direction, pursued by vigorous and youthful beauty, while the suffragette band played and thousands of suffragettes cheered wildly.
"Isn't it awful!" groaned the Mayor, arranging the lace cap on his turban-swirl and shaking out his skirts. "The police are no use. The suffragettes kidnap the good-looking ones. ”

“ Every girl there is pledged to mate only with the very pick of physical masculine perfection. Their pledge is to build up a new, god-like race on earth, which ultimately will dominate, crush out, survive, and [62] replace all humanity which has become degenerate. Nothing mentally or physically or politically imperfect is permitted inside that wire fence. My eye-glasses bar me out; your shanks exclude you—also your politics, because you're a democrat."
"That's monstrous!" exclaimed Langdon, indignantly. ”

“ He chewed his pad and swung his feet, philosophically.
"Why the devil doesn't some girl come and try to steal a kiss?" he muttered. "It might perhaps be well to call their attention to my helpless presence and unguarded condition."
So he sang for a while, swinging his legs: "Somebody's watching and waiting for me!" munching his luncheon between verses; and, as nobody came, he bawled louder and louder the refrain: "Somebody's darling, darling, dah-ling!" ”

“ Miss Darrell smiled tenderly at the girl and strolled off to join the other Regents; and Ethra, her thoughtful eyes fixed on Langdon, came slowly back, the yellow ribbon trailing in her hand.
Langdon leaped to his feet to meet her, gazing delightedly at the yellow ribbon.
"I qualified, of course!" he said joyously. "When is it customary to begin the courting?"
"You haven't qualified," said the girl, watching the effect of her words on the young man. "This is merely the probation ribbon." ”

“ For here the mountain road ended at the barn-yard bars; here the low wooded hills walled in this little world of house, barn, and orchard, making a silent, sunny place under the blue sky, sweet with late lilac bloom and the hum of bees. No factory smoke was visible, no Italians.
He looked at the aged house. A black cat sat on the porch thoughtfully polishing her countenance with the back of one paw. Three diminutive parti-coloured kittens frisked and rolled and toddled around her; and occasionally she seized one and washed it energetically against the grain. ”

“ With a quickly drawn breath she covered her face with both hands and stood a moment silent; [233] and Brown stared at her, astonished, doubting his eyes and ears.
The next moment she dropped her hands and looked at him with a tremulous smile.
"What in the world can you be thinking of me?" she said. "Alone in this old house, here among the remoter hills of Westchester. I live so vividly in the past that these almost forgotten tragedies seem very real to me and touch me closely. To me the present is only a shadow; the past is life itself. Can you understand?" ”

“ And when, a moment later, the miniature tornado had subsided into a series of playful sidewalk eddys, only the policemen, the hoi polloi, and the dog were still going; the Governor and the beautiful suffragette had completely disappeared.
They had, it is true, chosen a very good time and place for such an occult performance; Long Acre at its busiest.
Several mounted policemen had now joined in the frantic festivities. They galloped hurriedly in every direction. The crowd cheered and pursued the police, the small dog barked in eddying circles till he resembled an expiring pinwheel. ”

“ And, except on Sundays, Marque had little leisure to observe her, although in the [140] long late June evenings it was still light at eight o'clock, and he had, without understanding how or why, formed the habit of coming down to the deserted station platform to smoke his pipe and sometimes to fish in the shallow waters of Willow Brook, and watch the ripples turn from gold to purple, and listen to a certain bird that sat singing every day at sunset on the tip of a fir-balsam across the stream—a black and white bird with a rosy pink chest. ”

“ The duties of young Lord Marque, the new man on the Willett estate at Caranay, left him at leisure only after six o'clock, his day being almost entirely occupied in driving a large lawn mower.
Life, for John Marque—as he now called himself—had become exquisitely simple; eating, sleeping, driving a lawn mower—these three manly sports so entirely occupied the twenty-four hours that he had scarcely time to do much weeding—and no time at all to sympathise with himself because he was too busy by day and too sleepy at night. ”

“ The Regents of the New Race University will select for you several girls who, theoretically, are best qualified to become the mothers of your——"
"Stop!" shouted Langdon, tearing violently at the net. "I don't want you to talk that way to me!"
"What way?"
"You know perfectly well," he retorted, blushing vividly. "I won't stand it!"
"What a slave to prudery and smug convention you are," she observed with amused contempt. "Nobody in the University is going to shock your modesty."
"Well, what are they going to do?"
"Turn you loose in the preserve after the Regents have inspected you." ”

“ Make a dash for a taxi and the single life! One—two—three!"
The next moment the Secretary's top hat was carried away by a brick; the Mayor's turban-swirl went the same way, amid showers of confetti and a yell of fury from a thousand suffragettes who saw in his piteous attempt to disguise himself, by aid of a turban-swirl, an insult to womanhood the world over.
A perfect blizzard of missiles rained on the terrified politicians; the Secretary and the Mayor burst into a frantic canter up Thirty-fourth Street, pursued by a thousand strikingly handsome women. The Governor ran west. ”

“ Thunderstruck, he stared at her: "What on earth are we to do?" he groaned.
"We?"
"You and I?"
"How does it concern me?" asked the girl coldly.
"Doesn't it?"
She looked him calmly in the eye and shook her head.
"No, Mr. Langdon. However, as you are to remain here for a day or two under observation, no doubt you will receive some attention."
"Ethra! Isn't it possible that you might learn to care——"
"Hush! That is no way to talk!" ”

“ And she walked swiftly across to the edge of the thicket where the three Regents stood outside their cave.
As she came up one of them put her arm around her.
"My poor child," she said, "that man will never do."
"W-what!" faltered the girl, turning pale.
"Why, no. How in the world could you make such a mistake?"
Ethra looked piteously from one to another.
"What is the matter with him?" she asked. "I can't see anything the matter with him. If his legs are a trifle—refined in contour—a bicycle will help——"
"But, Ethra, this is not a hospital, dear. This is not a sanitarium. ”

“ Langdon, red and wrathful, sat up on the ground, peering at her through the enveloping net.
[86] "Never in my life," he said, "have I been spoken to in such terms of feminine contempt. Stop it! Can't you appreciate a joke?"
"Mr. Langdon, the day is past when women will either countenance or take part in any disrespectful witticisms, slurs, or jests at the expense of their own sex. Once—and that not very long ago—they did it. Comic papers made my sex the subject of cartoons and witticisms; the stage dared to spread the contemptible misinformation; women either smiled or remained indifferent. ”

“ Sometimes as many as two people in a week bought railroad tickets; sometimes a month would pass without anybody either sending or receiving a telegram. Telephone calls were a little more frequent.
So the girl had little to do there at her sunny open window, where mignonette and heliotrope and nasturtiums bloomed in pots, and the big bumble bees came buzzing and plundering the little window garden. ”

“ We believe it is an insidious attempt to sow dissension in the ranks of our sex—a bill cunningly devised to create jealousy and unworthy distrust among us—an ingenious and inhuman conspiracy to disorganize the National Federation of Free and Independent Women. ”

“ I suppose that my recent appraisement parallels the social inspection of a debutante—that my present hunger is paying for the wistful intellectual starvation to which men once doomed your sex; that my isolation represents the isolation from all that was vital in the times when women's opportunities were few and restricted; that my probation among you symbolises the toleration of my sex for whatever specimen of your sex they captured and set their mark on as belonging to them, and on view to the world during good behaviour. ”