Part 46 (2/2)

”And is Hal the model for your heroine?” asked Hermon.

When Hal's indignation and epithets had subsided, Quin remarked that he supposed the book fairly bristled with mothers, and with paragraphs of good advice to them.

”Well, yes,” d.i.c.k admitted. ”There are certainly a good many mothers - far more mothers than wives, in fact.”

”Oh, naughty!” put in Lord Denton.

”Not at all. It has to do with a theory. It is to bring out the common sense of vegetables compared to humans. Humans condemn millions of women, specially born for motherhood, to purposeless, joyless spinsterhood, all on account of a prejudice. No green, brainless, commonplace vegetable would be guilty of such unutterable folly as that.”

”Don't be too sweeping,” quoth Quin. ”In the East End women are still mothers from choice; and given decent, healthy conditions, they would proudly raise an army to protect their country from her threatening foes. It is not their fault that 50 per cent of their offspring are sickly, anaemic little weeds.”

”It sounds as if your book has a serious side in spite of its imbecility?” suggested Lorraine.

”Imbecility and madness are usually full of seriousness,” d.i.c.k told her - ”far more so than commonplace rationalism.”

”And do you want to revolutionise society?”

”Oh dear no; what an alarming idea!”

”Then what do you want?” - they asked him.

”I want to see all the superfluous unemployed spinsters busy, happy mothers, patriotically contributing to raise a splendid fighting-force, for one thing, which will certainly be regarded as an utterly imbecile idea by a magnificently rational world.”

”And have you any theory about it?” asked Lord Denton.

”Nothing but the worn-out, commonplace, absurdly natural theories of the vegetable and animal kingdoms. My only chance is that, being so ancient, and so absurdly natural, the modern world may mistake them for something entirely new, and seize upon them with the fasionable avidity for novelties.”

”Or they may lock you up,” suggested Quin.

”In any case I'm afraid you'll be too late,” Hal commented, with a half grave, half sarcastic air; ”for before your theories can make any headway, England is likely to have given all her life-blood to systems, and restrictions, and cut-and-dried conventions, utterly regardless of her need for a strong protecting force to maintain her existence at all. Taken in the aggregate, she never has bothered much about the primary necessity for the best possible conditions for the mothers of the future.”

”What a learned sentence, Hal,” put in Lorraine, looking amused.

”Quite worthy of a militant suffragette.”

”The announced suffragettes are not the only ones who care for England's future,” she said. ”I suppose I care a good deal because I'm in the newspaper world, and I know something of what she has to contend against in the way of petty party spirit and the self-aggrandising of some of her so-called leaders, who haven't an ounce of true patriotism, and only want to shout something outrageous in a very loud voice, just to attract public attention.”

”I think Bruce is right up to a certain point,” remarked Lord Denton.

”We can hardly contemplate the reinst.i.tution of polygamy, but it certainly ought to be the business of the State to see that every child born into the country is given the best possible conditions in which to become a good citizen and, if necessary, a good soldier.”

”Isn't there a Poor Law for that express purpose?” asked Lorraine.

”Don't speak of it,” commented Quin sadly. ”Our Poor Law, like so many excellent inst.i.tutions, is mostly run on a wrong basis. Huge sums of money are expended in procuring homes for homeless children, and the last thing that seems to be considered is the suitability of the home.

Applications are accepted in a perfunctory, business-like way by guardians and others - and perhaps an inspector takes a casual glance round; but the moral aspect of the whole matter, as to character and habits, is mostly left to chance. We, who are on the spot, often have to rescue children from the homes the State has provided for them.”

”It is more supervision, then, that you want?” asked Lord Denton.

”It is a different sort of supervision altogether. It ought to be woman's work, not man's - women who are paid and encouraged and helped.”

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