"
"Perfect. 'Dwight, Thorn--', no, 'Thorndyke, Lawton and Dwight.' I'm too
excited--convicts must feel like that when they tunnel a hole and get out.
It will be our real, our first adventure."
CHAPTER XX
I
But two weeks later Aileen told Alexina that although she had cannily
waited for what she believed to be the propitious moment and told her
father about the great scheme, she had never seen him so upset. She
stormed, argued, wept, but he was adamant. He would give her neither a cent
nor his permission. When she accused him of inconsistency (he had supported
woman's suffrage) he replied that women forced to work needed the franchise
and no fair-minded man would withhold it; and if for no other reason he
would forbid his daughter to go out and compete with women who must work
whether they wanted to or not.
But that was only one point.
What did progress mean if women deliberately dropped from a higher plane
to a lower? What had their ancestors worked for, possibly died for? It was
their manifest duty to their class, to their family, to go up not down.
Moreover, when women had men to support them and insisted upon forcing
their way into the business world, they made men ridiculous and undermined
society. It was dangerous, damned dangerous. If he had his way not a woman
in any class, outside of nursing and domestic service, should work. He'd
tax every male in the land, according to his income or wage, to say nothing
of the rich women, and keep every last one of the unportioned in idleness
rather than risk the downfall of male supremacy in the world.
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