. A few experiments in bacteriology----"

"Sterilizing nursing bottles?"

"How on earth did you ever guess?" he cried, overwhelmed, but perfectly
alert to the kindling anger in her blue eyes. "Why, of course that is
it. It is included in the science of embryotics--"

"What science?"

"Embryotics. For instance, you take an embryo of any kind--say a--a baby.
Then you show exactly how to dress, undress, wash, feed, and finally
bring that baby to triumphant maturity. It's interesting, isn't it, Miss
Smith?"

She said nothing. He twirled the cat furiously until its tail gave way
and it flew into a corner.

"Captain Jones," she said, "as I understand it, this bill is a codified
conspiracy to turn every woman of this State into a--a washer of clothes,
a cleaner of floors, a bearer of children--and a Haus-frau!"

"I--I would not put it _that_ way," he protested.

"And her reward," she went on, not noticing his interruption, "is
permission to vote--to use the inalienable liberty with which already
Heaven has endowed her."

Tears flashed in her eyes; she held her small head proudly and not one
fell.

"Captain Jones," she said, "do you realize what centuries of suppression
are doing to my sex? Do you understand that woman is degenerating into
an immobility--an inertia--a molluskular condition of receptive passivity
which is rendering us, year by year, more unfitted to either think or act
for ourselves? Even in the matter of marriage we are not permitted by
custom to assume the initiative. We may only shake our heads until the
man we are inclined toward asks us, when he is entirely ready to ask.
Then, like a row of Chinese dolls, we nod our heads. I tell you," she
said, tremulously, "we are becoming like that horrid, degenerate,
wingless moth which is born, mates, and dies in one spot--a living
mechanical incubator--a poor, deformed, senseless thing that has through
generations lost not only the use, but even the rudiments of the wings
which she once possessed. But the male moth flies more strongly and
frivolously than ever. There is nothing the matter with the development
of _his_ wings, Captain Jones."

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

XVI

IT was now growing rather dark in the room.

"I'm terribly sorry you feel this way," he said.

She had averted her eyes and was now seated, chin in hand, looking out of
the window.

"Do you know," he said, "this is a rotten condition of affairs."

"What do you m