''
She looked at him sitting there at once penitent and impenitent;
and her mind went back to the thoughts that had engaged it before
he came into view. Marriage-- to marry one of these men, with
their coarse physical ideas of women, with their pitiful weakness
before an emotion that seemed to her to have no charm whatever.
And these were the creatures who ruled the world and compelled
women to be their playthings and mere appendages! Well--no doubt
it was the women's own fault, for were they not a poor,
spiritless lot, trembling with fright lest they should not find a
man to lean on and then, having found the man, settling down into
fat and stupid vacuity or playing the cat at the silly game of
social position? But not Jane Hastings! Her bosom heaved and
her eyes blazed scorn as she looked at this person who had dared
think the touch of his coarse hands would be welcome. Welcome!
``And I have been thinking what a delightful friendship ours
was,'' said she, disgustedly. ``And all the time, your talk
about your ambition--the speeches you were going to make--the
offices you were going to hold-- the good you were going to do in
purifying politics-- it was all a blind!''
``All a blind,'' admitted he. ``From the first night that you
came to our house to dinner--Jen, I'll never forget that dress
you wore--or the way you looked in it.''
Miss Jane had thought extremely well of that toilet herself. She
had heard how impervious this David Hull, the best catch in the
town, was to feminine charm; and she had gone prepared to give
battle.
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