CHAPTER XII

Fortunately Acquilla had not yet returned from Europa. Before the jealous eyes of Mag, we sought to conceal our happiness, foolishly believing, as lovers will, that they can look on each other without betraying the kindling in their glances. My head was still giddy with the fantasy of this miraculous day with my bewildering Dianne, alone in the clear ether, even the world shut out by the fleecy canopies of the clouds beneath us. But the moment I had gone to my room the sternness of my resolve returned. And a little guilty, like a neophyte who has forgotten his vows, I consecrated myself anew, determined to conquer my passion for Dianne, if it should begin to interfere with the accomplishment of my purpose.

When I descended to the bath, Mag was waiting for me with eyes red with weeping. I determined to make sure of her loyalty, so laying my hand on her shoulder, I said gently:

“You are my friend, are you not, Mag? And you would never do me any harm?”

The poor girl was struck all in a heap. Her glance dropped before mine and bursting into tears she vowed that never, never, would she betray me! I rewarded her with a smile and a pat on the shoulder and descended gratefully into this healing bath of all the senses. There I spent some time turning over in my mind my future activities as a militant suffragist.

I had scarcely finished dressing when Acquilla returned. At the first glance I saw all the anxiety which was torturing her imagination. Acquilla was jealous as only a woman can be, to whom love comes late in life. During her going to and fro she must have had time to turn over the sudden appearance of Dianne, and the intuitions of a jealous woman had led her to the correct solution that Dulcina had been used as a blind to screen my true feelings for Dianne. But perceiving the lugubriousness of my expression, she had a momentary flash of hope. Perhaps we had quarreled!

“Something is wrong, dear?” she said, holding me off and searching anxiously in my face.

“You are right,” I replied sternly, “something is wrong. But something that cannot be dismissed in a word. If you please, we will wait until after dinner.”

“You are angry with me?” she exclaimed with such sharp suffering in her voice, that, realizing all the torments of jealousy she must have been suffering during the day, I could not resist a movement of sympathy. I pressed her hand in mine and allowed a smile to soften the severity of my look.

“Not with you personally,” I replied, shaking my head. “But much will depend on your attitude.”

“You cannot tell me now?”

“Wait.”

She was devoured with anxiety during dinner, for she scarcely touched her extracts, while I, on the contrary, after the fashion of men, fortified myself copiously. But all at once the perplexity in her eyes cleared and sitting up unexpectedly she cried:

“Ah, I know, you have seen the Clubs!”

“Your intuitions are right,” I said sternly to avoid explanations. “I have seen that shameful prison you call a Club, I have seen what you call men assembled in a football arena; and I have learned precisely what humiliating positions they occupy in your state.”

My anger brought back her calm. Since the contest was to be on intellectual grounds she recovered her authority.

“I suspected it,” she said acidly. “Dianne has done a wrong, a dangerous thing. I myself would have guided you when the time was ripe. But this premature introduction before you have a true conception of what our civilization has accomplished has, as I foresaw, worked on your sentimental nature.”

I laughed an angry ironical laugh.

“You call my reactions sentimental, indeed!”

“Certainly. What do you object to? You have learned that men are kept simply as breeders, privileged to be free of all care and responsibility. And you are in a rage. Why? Is it because we have taken from the male instinct the inhibitions that he rebelled against in your day? Come, let us be frank! How many men you knew would have rebelled against this existence they now enjoy?”

“My dear Acquilla!” I started to say, then coughed and stopped. I realized that I was meeting the adroit feminine mind and that above everything I must keep cool and avoid being put on the defensive. I rose, took a turn about the room and sat down.

“Let us discuss it calmly,” I said, biting my lips.

“Calmly.”

“It is not simply that you have made specialists of my sex,” I said with an attempt at irony, “but the cold-blooded way in which you carry out your intentions!”

“As for instance?”

“You have gone a little further than the insects which you admire so much. I suppose I should return thanks for that. But I do not. I have now recognized that sentimentality plays no part in a woman’s nature. But I was not prepared for the machine-like efficiency--”

“What are you talking about, my dear man?”

I stopped, composed myself, and blurted out:

“Do you deny that at the age of thirty-five men are disposed of in a sort of slaughter of the drones?”

“Oh, I see,” said Acquilla. She looked at me with one of her irritating smiles and replied, “But how did you treat my sex when you had a man-made civilization?”

“What? What?”

“I asked you a simple question, dear. How did you treat my sex when you had a man-made civilization? After thirty-five what was there in life for the generality of women?”

“Their homes, their children,” I answered pontifically.

“The drudgery of the home, the servitude to their children. No, Bogardus, at thirty-five or before when men were still young, women were ended. They had lost their value as women and were esteemed according to their value as nurses and housekeepers. The final cruelty you inflicted on them was to let them grow old. We are much more humane.”

“You look on history as simply a war of the sexes?” I said hotly, for the degradation of my sex as I successively comprehended it, made it difficult to restrain my anger.

“Of course. So long as civilization had to rise through physical force, the male ascendency was inevitable. Granted. But the moment that scientific discoveries did away with the necessity of multitudes for cannon fodder and replaced blind hands by intelligent machines women were freed from their need of your physical protection. In the last phases of your civilization, though you did not perceive the underlying conflict, were you not aware that economically, and in a measure morally, the women you rated as the weaker sex were really the despots of your existences?”

Some curious trick of habit made me glance over my shoulder for the shadow of my mother-in-law before replying:

“When you say morally, I do not entirely agree. Economically, yes, there is no doubt that the expenditure of women for luxuries was out of all proportion. But allowing the past to lie,” I said, striving to be diplomatic, “tell me, Acquilla, in your opinion, is this warfare of the sexes, as you call it, to endure forever? Do you not in some future state of society conceive of the possibility of men and women equally intelligent living together in harmony? For, after all, without too much vanity, do you not prefer to converse on equal terms as you have with me, than to treat men simply as playthings of your passions?”

“Possibly,” she said after a moment, “what you suggest is in the future when we have completely achieved the freedom of the individual, but the moment is not now.”

“Why not? Men educated by women will be different,” I suggested.

“That is not quite honest,” said Acquilla reprovingly. “The nature of man cannot be changed in a few hundred years.”

“Why not experiment? What is there to fear now that the age of reason is so completely achieved?”

“The passion for conquest. Even today, despite all our discoveries in the field of Eugenics the male child’s first impulse is to wrestle down his companions. What is the passion for sport you have just witnessed--more intense than ever--but an evolution of the desire to kill? You men seek to destroy your opponents not to play with them. You make of your games battles. You hate those with whom you contend.”

“That is an exaggeration,” I interrupted, and then stopped. “At least in my day it was only when we were young, when in school and college we were given an exaggerated idea of winning for the glorification of a mass ideal. Besides, even then, we did not take ourselves too seriously.”

“Then why this hysterical frenzy you saw in the mob of spectators--a frenzy like the blood lust of the Roman arena? No, no, dear man, put away your pride and prejudices. They are out of place. You are a man of the past with a singularly honest and reasoning brain, but don’t deceive yourself. The nature of man is the same today as yesterday or tomorrow. If we should listen to the sentimentalist and restore him to equality in our civilization, the world would return to war within a generation.”

Was it true? I was silent, troubled, finding no conviction in my self-interrogatory.

Acquilla was too clever to pursue her advantage. She rose and coming to me took my hand.

“I wished to spare you all this, dear,” she said in a swift change of mood. “My only thought was to lead you gradually to a perception of why the great adventure on which we are embarked cannot now be entrusted to a divided authority.”

“Answer me this, Acquilla,” I said looking at her fixedly, “am I a free agent or am I simply your prisoner, delightful as that sentence may be?”

“That is a problem that is still to be decided by the Supreme Council,” she replied. “A very perplexing problem. Whether you will be interned or treated as a distinguished visitor depends on you, my dear. Now do you understand all my solicitude?”

The thought that I could play upon my hold over her to add a new ally, occurred to me. I said in a conciliatory tone, though I must confess with a certain pleasant provocation:

“My lovely Amazon, don’t you see that it is just because I am unlike your foolish males of today--that it is my intelligence which attracts you.”

“To be truthful,” she said looking at me boldly, “it is that, and a good deal more than that.”

I acknowledged the compliment with a smile.

“Then to continue in a truthful mood, is it not the man of yesterday that is the true mate of the woman of today?”

“I can admit all that between us two, yes--and yet I can deny it in its public application,” replied Acquilla with that annoying obstinacy of cerebral women that destroys the necessary illusion in romance.

“Still--”

“Oh, foolish man, are you going to spoil everything with your eternal consistency?” she added, devouring me with eyes that were awake with passion.

Consistency? No, certainly not! If I had been in love with her, I should have flung consistency to the winds. But having Dianne in all my veins, I replied, adroitly:

“My charming Acquilla, I shall not pretend to be more obtuse than I am. The time has come when we must understand each other. You also must understand one thing: I am what I am--a man brought up in the strictest traditions of the Dutch Reformed Church; proud of my name and my ancestry. No Bogardus has ever temporized or yielded an inch to any doctrine that would upset the sanctity of marriage--”

To my astonishment Acquilla began to laugh. I cannot describe it as a complete laugh, but it was undeniably a titter.

“You yourself have taught me the use of irony,” she said noticing my astonishment. “Really aren’t you a little ridiculous, dear?” she added, passing her fingers through my hair. “Since marriage no longer exists, what has the Dutch Reformed Church to do with us?”

I put her hand firmly from me with as much dignity as I could muster and suddenly inspired, said:

“It means that I keep my standards as you keep yours. When I take my mate it shall be for life. If you love me as your attitude implies--”

“Love you! Yes, for the first time,” she cried breathlessly.

“Stop!” I said, as a maiden might have interposed. “I ask no confession, but understand this, Acquilla: no matter how dazzling your position, I refuse to be yours for a day or month. Your past is not my affair, but in the future there must be no other man. Your free companion for life--never your plaything for an hour!” And as she stood staring at me absolutely dumfounded, I added in the best dramatic manner: “All or nothing!”

With which I escaped for fear of spoiling my climax by an uncontrollable gasp of laughter. I went to my room and stifled my hysterical laughter as best I could. But all at once a thought sobered me. Suppose, blinded by passion, she should agree? Here was a predicament. I rose and went to the door to lock it. But of course, in these modern days, bars and bolts did not exist. At last in despair--for what was I in strength compared with this amazing Amazon--I drew my bed across the door and lay down.

Twice before I fell off to sleep, I heard her footsteps hesitating outside, and once--though it might have been my imagination--I thought someone pressed softly on the door.