ey
don't understand, and of course we all know what women are--"

"What are they?" asked Mrs. Wayne, and Lanley's heart sank.

"Oh, emotional and inaccurate and untrustworthy and spiteful."

"Mrs. Baxter, I'm sure you're not like that."

"My dear Madam!" exclaimed Wilsey.

"But isn't that logical?" Mrs. Wayne pursued. "If all women are so, and
she's a woman?"

"Ah, logic, dear lady," said Wilsey, holding up a finger--"logic, you
know, has never been the specialty of your sex."

"Of course it's logic," said Lanley, crossly. "If you say all Americans
are liars, Wilsey, and you're an American, the logical inference is that
you think yourself a liar. But Mrs. Baxter doesn't mean that she thinks
all women are inferior--"

"I must say I prefer men," she answered almost coquettishly.

"If all women were like you, Mrs. Baxter, I'd believe in giving them the
vote," said Wilsey.

"Please don't," she answered. "I don't want it."

"Ah, the clever ones don't."

"I never pretended to be clever."

"Perhaps not; but I'd trust your intuition where I would pay no attention
to a clever person."

Lanley laughed.

"I think you'd better express that a little differently, Wilsey," he
said; but his legal adviser did not notice him.

"My daughter came to me the other day," he went on to Mrs. Baxter, "and
said, 'Father, don't you think women ought to have the vote some day?'
and I said, 'Yes, my dear, just as soon as men have the babies.'"

"There's no answer to that," said Mrs. Baxter.

"I fancy not," said Wilsey. "I think I put the essence of it in that
sentence."

"If ever women get into power in this country, I shall live abroad."

"O Mrs. Baxter," said Mrs. Wayne, "really you don't understand women--"

"I don't? Why, Mrs. Wayne, I am a woman."

"All human beings are spiteful and inaccurate and all those things you
said; but that isn't _all_ they are. The women I see, the wives of my
poor drunkards are so wonderful, so patient. They are mothers and
wage-earners and sick nurses, too; they're not the sort of women you
describe. Perhaps," she added, with one of her fatal impulses toward
concession, "perhaps your friends are untrustworthy and spiteful, as
you say--"

Mrs. Baxter drew herself up. "My friends, Mrs. Wayne," she said--"my
friends, I think, will compare favorably even with the wives of your
drunkards."

Mr. Lanley rose to his feet.

"Shall we go up-stairs?" he said. Mr. Wilsey offered Mrs. Baxter his