Part 12 (1/2)

Genevieve had always loved children deeply. Long before this her happy dreams had peopled the old house in Sheridan Road with handsome, dark-eyed girls, and bright-eyed boys like their father.

But, to her own intense astonishment, she found this speech from her husband distasteful. George would be ”proud,” and Uncle Martin pleased.

But it suddenly occurred to Genevieve that neither George nor Uncle Martin would be tearful and nervous. Neither George nor Uncle Martin need eschew golf and riding and dancing. To be sick, when she had always been so well! To face death, for which she had always had so healthy a horror! Cousin Alex had died when her baby came, and Lois Farwell had never been well after the fourth Farwell baby made his appearance.

Genevieve's tears died as if from flame. She gently put aside the sustaining arm, and went to the little mirror on the wall, to straighten her hat. She remembered buying this hat, a few weeks ago, in the ecstatic last days of the old life.

”We needn't talk of that yet, George,” she said quietly.

She could see George's grieved look, in the mirror. There was a short silence in the office.

Then Betty Sheridan, cool in pongee, came briskly in.

”h.e.l.lo, Jinny!” said she. ”Had you forgotten our plan tonight?

You're chaperoning me, I hope you realize! I'm rather difficile, too.

Genevieve, Pudge is outside; he'll take you out and buy you something cold. I took him to lunch today. It was disgraceful! Except for a frightful-looking mess called German Pot Roast With Carrots and Noodles Sixty, he ate nothing but melon, lemon-meringue pie, and pineapple special. I was absolutely ashamed! George, I would have speech with you.”

”Private business, Betty?” he asked pleasantly. ”My wife may not have the vote, but I trust her with all my affairs!”

”Indeed, I'm not in the least interested!” Genevieve said saucily.

She knew George was pleased with her as she went happily away.

”It's just as well Jinny went,” said Betty, when she and the district-attorney-elect were alone. ”Because it's that old bore Colonel Jaynes! He's come again, and he says he _will_ see you!”

Deep red rose in George's handsome face.

”He came here last week, and he came yesterday,” Betty said, sitting down, ”and really I think you should see him! You see, George, in that far-famed article of yours, you remarked that 'a veteran of the civil as well as the Spanish war' had told you that it was the restless outbreaking of a few northern women that helped to precipitate the national catastrophe, and he wants to know if you meant him!”

”I named no names!” George said, with dignity, yet uneasily, too.

”I know you didn't. But you see we haven't many veterans of _both_ wars,” Betty went on, pleasantly. ”And of course old Mrs. Jaynes is a rabid suffragist, and she is simply hopping. He's a mild old man, you know, and evidently he wants to square things with 'Mother.' Now, George, who _did_ you mean?”

”A statement like that may be made in a general sense,” George remarked, after scowling thought.

”You might have made the statement on your own hook,” Betty conceded, ”but when you mention an anonymous Colonel, of course they all sit up!

He says that he's going to get a signed statement from you that _he_ never said that, and publish it!”

”Ridiculous!” said George.

”Then here are two letters,” Betty pursued. ”One is from the corresponding secretary of the Women's Non-partisan Pacific Coast a.s.sociation. She says that they would be glad to hear from you regarding your statement that equal suffrage, in the western states, is an acknowledged failure.”

”She'll wait!” George predicted grimly.

”Yes, I suppose so. But she's written to our Mrs. Herrington here, asking her to follow up the matter. George, dear,” asked Betty maternally, ”_why_ did you do it? Why couldn't you let well enough alone!”

”What's your other letter?” asked George.

”It's just from Mr. Riker, of the _Sentinel_, George. He wants you to drop in. It seems that they want a correction on one of your statistics about the number of workingwomen in the United States who don't want the vote. He says it only wants a signed line from you that you were mistaken--”