I'd rather go to
work. Why shouldn't a woman work, anyhow?"

"At what?" inquired Hull. "Except the men who do manual labor, there
are precious few men who can make a living honestly and
self-respectingly. It's fortunate the women can hold aloof and remain
pure."

Jane laughed unpleasantly. "I'm not so sure that the women who live
with men just for shelter are pure," said she.

"Jen," the young man burst out, "you're ambitious--aren't you?"

"Rather," replied she.

"And you like the sort of thing I'm trying to do--like it and approve
of it?"

"I believe a man ought to succeed--get to the top."

"So do I--if he can do it honorably."

Jane hesitated--dared. "To be quite frank," said she, "I worship
success and I despise failure. Success means strength. Failure means
weakness--and I abominate weakness."

He looked quietly disapproving. "You don't mean that. You don't
understand what you're saying."

"Perfectly," she assured him. "I'm not a bit good. Education has
taken all the namby-pamby nonsense out of me."

But he was not really hearing; besides, what had women to do with the
realities of life? They were made to be the property of men--that was
the truth, though he would never have confessed it to any woman. They
were made to be possessed. "And I must possess this woman," he
thought, his blood running hot. He said:

"Why not help me to make a career? I can do it, Jen, with you to help."

She had thought of this before--of making a career for herself, of
doing the "something" her intense energy craved, through a man. The
"something" must be big if it were to satisfy her; and what that was
big could a woman do except through a man? But--this man. Her eyes
turned thoughtfully upon him--a look that encouraged him to go on:

"Politics interest you, Jen. I've seen that in the way you listen and
in the questions you ask."

She smiled--but not at the surface. In fact, his political talk had
bored her. She knew nothing about the subject, and, so, had been as
one listening to an unknown language. But, like all women, having only
the narrowest range of interests herself and the things that would
enable her to show off to advantage, she was used to being bored by the
conversational efforts of men and to concealing her boredom. She had
listened patiently and had led the conversation by slow, imperceptible
stages round to the interesting personal--to the struggle for dominion
over this difficu