The Convert Part 77

'Geoffrey Stonor! For me he's simply one of the far back links in a chain of evidence. It's certain I think a hundred times of other women's present unhappiness to once that I remember that old unhappiness of mine that's past. I think of the nail and chain makers of Cradley Heath, the sweated girls of the slums; I think,' her voice fell, 'of the army of ill-used women, whose very existence I mustn't mention----'

Lady John interrupted her hurriedly. 'Then why in heaven's name do you let poor Jean imagine----'

Vida suddenly bent forward. 'Look--I'll trust you, Lady John. I don't suffer from that old wrong as Jean thinks I do, but I shall coin her sympathy into gold for a greater cause than mine.'

'I don't understand you.'

'Jean isn't old enough to be able to care as much about a principle as about a person. But if my old half-forgotten pain can turn her generosity into the common treasury----'

'What do you propose she shall do, poor child?'

'Use her hold over Geoffrey Stonor to make him help us.'

'To help you?'

'The man who served one woman--G.o.d knows how many more--very ill, shall serve hundreds of thousands well. Geoffrey Stonor shall make it harder for his son, harder still for his grandson, to treat any woman as he treated me.'

'How will he do that?' said the lady coldly.

'By putting an end to the helplessness of women.'

'You must think he has a great deal of power,' said her ladyship, with some irony.

'Power? Yes,' answered the other, 'men have too much over penniless and frightened women.'

'What nonsense! You talk as though the women hadn't their share of human nature. _We_ aren't made of ice any more than the men.'

'No, but we have more self-control.'

'Than men?'

Vida had risen. She looked down at her friend. 'You know we have,' she said.

'I know,' said Lady John shrewdly, 'we mustn't admit it.'

'For fear they'd call us fishes?'

Lady John had been frankly shocked at the previous plain speaking, but she found herself stimulated to show in this moment of privacy that even she had not travelled her sheltered way through the world altogether in blinkers.

'They talk of our lack of self-control, but,' she admitted, 'it's the last thing men _want_ women to have.'

'Oh, we know what they want us to have! So we make shift to have it. If we don't, we go without hope--sometimes we go without bread.'

'Vida! Do you mean to say that you----'

'I mean to say that men's vanity won't let them see it, but the thing's largely a question of economics.'

'You _never_ loved him, then!'

'Yes, I loved him--once. It was my helplessness that turned the best thing life can bring into a curse for both of us.'

'I don't understand you----'

'Oh, being "understood"! that's too much to expect. I make myself no illusions. When people come to know that I've joined the Women's Union----'

'But you won't'

'----who is there who will resist the temptation to say "Poor Vida Levering! What a pity she hasn't got a husband and a baby to keep her quiet"? The few who know about me, they'll be equally sure that, not the larger view of life I've gained, but my own poor little story, is responsible for my new departure.' She leaned forward and looked into Lady John's face. 'My best friend, she will be surest of all, that it's a private sense of loss, or lower yet, a grudge, that's responsible for my att.i.tude. I tell you the only difference between me and thousands of women with husbands and babies is that I am free to say what I think.

_They aren't!_'

Lady John opened her lips and then closed them firmly. After all, why pursue the matter? She had got the information she had come for.

'I must hurry back;' she rose, murmuring, 'my poor ill-used guests----'

Vida stood there quiet, a little cold. 'I won't ring,' she said. 'I think you'll find Mr. Stonor downstairs waiting for you.'

'Oh--a--he will have left word about the car in any case.'

Lady John's embarra.s.sment was not so much at seeing that her friend had divined the gist of the arrangement that had been effected downstairs.

It was that Vida should be at no pains to throw a decent veil over the fact of her realization that Lady John had come there in the character of scout. With an openness not wholly free from scorn, the younger woman had laid her own cards on the table. She made no scruple at turning her back on Lady John's somewhat incoherent evasion. Ignoring it she crossed the room and opened the door for her.

Jean was in the corridor saying good-bye to the chairman of the afternoon.

'Well, Mr. Trent,' said Miss Levering in even tones, 'I didn't expect to see you this evening.'

He came forward and stood in the doorway. 'Why not? Have I ever failed?'

'Lady John,' said Vida, turning, 'this is one of our allies. He is good enough to squire me through the rabble from time to time.'

'Well,' said Lady John, advancing quite graciously, 'I think it's very handsome of you after what she said to-day about men.'

'I've no great opinion of most men myself,' said the young gentleman. 'I might add, or of most women.'

'Oh!' Lady John laughed. 'At any rate I shall go away relieved to think that Miss Levering's plain speaking hasn't alienated _all_ masculine regard.'

'Why should it?' he said.

'That's right.' Lady John metaphorically patted him on the back. 'Don't believe all she says in the heat of propaganda.'

'I _do_ believe all she says. But I'm not cast down.'

'Not when she says----'

'Was there never,' he made bold to interrupt, 'a misogynist of _my_ s.e.x who ended by deciding to make an exception?'

'Oh!' Lady John smiled significantly; 'if _that's_ what you build on!'

'Why,' he demanded with an effort to convey 'pure logic,' 'why shouldn't a man-hater on your side prove equally open to reason?'