Part 58 (2/2)
”Quite so; he felt it a bitter wrong that I should claim that liberty of action which I warned him before our marriage that I _should_ claim. He made no objection _then_: on the contrary, he professed to agree with me; and declared that he did not care what I might think; but now he says that in acting as I have acted, I have forfeited my position, and need not return to the Red House.”
”I know. But he spoke in great haste and anger. He has made me his _confidante_.”
”And his amba.s.sador?”
Henriette shook her head. No; she had acted entirely on her own responsibility. She could not bear to see her brother suffering. He had felt the quarrel deeply.
”On account of the stupid talk,” said Hadria. ”_That_ will soon blow over.”
”On account of the talk partly. You know his sensitiveness about anything that concerns his domestic life. He acutely feels your leaving the children, Hadria. Try to put yourself in his place. Would _you_ not feel it?”
”If I were a man with two children of whom I was extremely fond, I have no doubt that I should feel it very much indeed if I lost an intelligent and trustworthy superintendent, whose services a.s.sured the children's welfare, and relieved me of all anxiety on their account.”
”If you are going to take this hard tone, Hadria, I fear you will never listen to reason.”
”Henriette, when people look popular sentiments squarely in the face, they are always called hard, or worse. You have kept yourself thoroughly informed of our affairs. Whose parental sentiments were gratified by the advent of those children--Hubert's or mine?”
”But you are a mother.”
Hadria laughed. ”You play into my hands, Henriette. You tacitly acknowledge that it was not for _my_ gratification that those children were brought into the world (a common story, let me observe), and then you remind me that I am a mother! Your mentor must indeed be slumbering.
You are simply scathing--on my behalf! Have you come all the way from England for this?”
”You _won't_ understand. I mean that motherhood has duties. You can't deny that.”
”I can and I do.”
Miss Temperley stared. ”You will find no human being to agree with you,”
she said at length.
”That does not alter my opinion.”
”Oh, Hadria, explain yourself! You utter paradoxes. I want to understand your point of view.”
”It is simple enough. I deny that motherhood has duties except when it is absolutely free, absolutely uninfluenced by the pressure of opinion, or by any of the innumerable tyrannies that most children have now to thank for their existence.”
Miss Temperley shook her head. ”I don't see that any 'tyranny,' as you call it, exonerates a mother from her duty to her child.”
”There we differ. Motherhood, in our present social state, is the sign and seal as well as the means and method of a woman's bondage. It forges chains of her own flesh and blood; it weaves cords of her own love and instinct. She agonizes, and the fruit of her agony is not even legally hers. Name me a position more abject! A woman with a child in her arms is, to me, the symbol of an abas.e.m.e.nt, an indignity, more complete, more disfiguring and terrible, than any form of humiliation that the world has ever seen.”
”You must be mad!” exclaimed Miss Temperley. ”That symbol has stood to the world for all that is sweetest and holiest.”
”I know it has! So profound has been our humiliation!”
”I don't know what to say to anyone so wrong-headed and so twisted in sentiment.”
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