"Call on Judge Regis to-morrow, and tell him you are very much
interested in suffrage for women in this county. Say that you'd like to
take your part in bringing it about. Just that, no more. And you'll see
what happens." She turned her head to one side and looked at him with
treacherous sweetness.

"I'll be hanged if I do!"

"Be reasonable, Martin!"

"Don't talk to me about being reasonable. I'm one of the few reasonable
beings left in this town."

"Well, that kind of reason is out of fashion now. You've got to share
our reasons, Martin. Women have a rationality you men do not recognize;
now you've got to."

"I will not! But suppose I do?"

"You'll get immediate relief from your present financial pressure, for
one thing."

"Tell that to the marines!"

"Very well. I'll stand between you and--and ruin as long as I can, but
if you don't give in I can't save you!" she whimpered.

"And what about Thad Bailey and Baldwin and Saddler and all the other
merchants?" he asked curiously, with his nose pointed like a terrier who
smells a rat.

"The sooner you or somebody persuades them to go to Judge Regis and make
the same agreement, the sooner you'll get what you want," she replied.

"And what we don't want! Do you think for a moment the men in this
county would give women the vote even if they could, Mabel?"

"I don't think about it, Martin, I know you are going to be forced to do
it, and I want you to give in before it is too late to save your credit;
you'll be a day labourer before you know it if you don't listen to
reason," she concluded tearfully.

"Reason! Reason! A set of crazy women dictating to men. What is reason?"
shouted the furious little merchant as he rushed from the room.

The domestic atmosphere of Jordantown from one end to the other was
charged with thunderstorm possibilities. The wives of all the citizens
were attending hurriedly to their household affairs, and then attending
to other affairs which were not household. Every day some council or
committee met in the Woman's Building. They even met in the evenings.
Putting on their hats and taking the latchkey, they went out as
nonchalantly as ever their husbands had gone. They weathered the rage of
these husbands with singular calm, very much as mothers cheerfully
witness the tantrums of their growing children. The fact that they went
out in the evenings was not remarkable. The women of Jordantown were
pious. They attended prayer meetings regul