ould women be dependent on men?" she asked; and the question was
at once converted into a system of variations upon the theme of "Why
are things as they are?"--"Why are human beings viviparous?"--"Why are
people hungry thrice a day?"--"Why does one faint at danger?"

She stood for a time looking at the dry limbs and still human face of
that desiccated unwrapped mummy from the very beginnings of social life.
It looked very patient, she thought, and a little self-satisfied. It
looked as if it had taken its world for granted and prospered on that
assumption--a world in which children were trained to obey their
elders and the wills of women over-ruled as a matter of course. It was
wonderful to think this thing had lived, had felt and suffered. Perhaps
once it had desired some other human being intolerably. Perhaps some one
had kissed the brow that was now so cadaverous, rubbed that sunken cheek
with loving fingers, held that stringy neck with passionately living
hands. But all of that was forgotten. "In the end," it seemed to be
thinking, "they embalmed me with the utmost respect--sound spices chosen
to endure--the best! I took my world as I found it. THINGS ARE SO!"

Part 3

Ann Veronica's first impression of Kitty Brett was that she was
aggressive and disagreeable; her next that she was a person of amazing
persuasive power. She was perhaps three-and-twenty, and very pink and
healthy-looking, showing a great deal of white and rounded neck above
her business-like but altogether feminine blouse, and a good deal of
plump, gesticulating forearm out of her short sleeve. She had animated
dark blue-gray eyes under her fine eyebrows, and dark brown hair that
rolled back simply and effectively from her broad low forehead. And she
was about as capable of intelligent argument as a runaway steam-roller.
She was a trained being--trained by an implacable mother to one end.

She spoke with fluent enthusiasm. She did not so much deal with Ann
Veronica's interpolations as dispose of them with quick and use-hardened
repartee, and then she went on with a fine directness to sketch the case
for her agitation, for that remarkable rebellion of the women that was
then agitating the whole world of politics and discussion. She assumed
with a kind of mesmeric force all the propositions that Ann Veronica
wanted her to define.

"What do we want? What is the goal?" asked Ann Veronica.

"Freedom! Citizenship! And the way to that--the way to e