Part 17 (2/2)

”Is there?” said Katharine, remembering the sixty-three working-women at Queen's Crescent, and her feelings towards them. But Mrs. Keeley had ideas about women who worked, and meant to air them.

”It is so splendid to think that women can really do men's work, in spite of everything that is said to the contrary,” she continued.

The weary-looking girl made no attempt to contradict her, but Katharine was less docile.

”I don't think they can,” she objected. ”They might, perhaps, if they had a fair chance; but they haven't.”

”But they are getting it every day,” cried Mrs. Keeley, waxing enthusiastic. ”Think of the progress that has been made, even in my time; and in another ten years there will be nothing that women will not be able to do in common with men! Isn't it a glorious reflection?”

”I don't think it will be so,” persisted Katharine. ”It has nothing to do with education, or any of those things. A woman is handicapped, just because she is a woman, and has to go on living like a woman.

There is always home work to be done, or some one to be nursed, or clothes to be mended. A man has nothing to do but his work; but a woman is expected to do a woman's work as well as a man's. It is too much for any one to do well. I am a working-woman myself, and I don't find it so pleasant as it is painted.”

”I'm _so_ glad you think so,” murmured Marion, who had come up un.o.bserved, with her favourite in close attendance. ”I was afraid you would be on mamma's side, and I believe you are on mine, after all.”

At this point the weary-looking girl got up to leave, as though she could not bear it another minute, and Katharine tried to do the same; but she was not to be let off so easily.

”Tell me,” said her aunt earnestly, ”do you not think that women are happier if they have work to do for their living?”

”I suppose it is possible, but I haven't met any who are,” answered Katharine. ”I think it is because they feel they have sacrificed all the pleasures of life. Men don't like women who work, do they?”

The eyes of Marion met those of her favourite admirer; and Marion blushed. But Mrs. Keeley returned to the charge.

”Indeed, there are many in my own acquaintance who have the greatest admiration for working-women.”

”Oh, yes,” laughed Katharine, ”they have lots of admiration for us; but they don't fall in love with us, that's all. I think it is because it is the elusive quality in woman that fascinates men; and directly they begin to understand her, they cease to be fascinated by her. And woman is growing less mysterious every day, now; she is chiefly occupied in explaining herself, and that is why men don't find her such good fun. At least, I think so.”

”You know us remarkably well, Miss Austen, you do, really,” drawled the favourite boy.

”Oh, no,” said Katharine, really getting up this time, ”I don't pretend to. But I do know the working gentlewoman very well indeed, and I don't think she is a bit like the popular idea of her.”

She was much pleased with herself as she walked home; and even the bustle of Edgware Road and the squalor of Queen's Crescent failed to remove the pleasant impression that her excursion into the fas.h.i.+onable world had left with her. It comforted her wounded feelings to discover that she could hold her own in a room full of people, although the only man whose opinion she valued held her of no more account than a child.

”Hullo! you seem pleased with yourself,” said Polly Newland, as she entered the house. The c.o.c.kney tw.a.n.g of her voice struck un-musically on Katharine's ear, and she murmured some sort of ungracious reply and turned to rummage in the box for letters. There was one for her, and the sight of the precise, upright handwriting drove every thought of Polly, and the Keeleys, and her pleasant afternoon out of her head.

Even then something kept her from reading it at once, and she took it upstairs into her cubicle, and laid it on the table while she changed her clothes and elaborately folded up her best ones and put them away.

Then she sat down on the bed and tore it open with trembling fingers, and tried to cheat herself into the belief that she was perfectly indifferent as to its contents.

”Dear child,” it ran:--

What has become of you? Come round and have tea with me to-morrow afternoon. I have some new books to show you.

Yours ever,

PAUL WILTON.

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