The Restless Sex

"It's rather a rotten world if Steve and I can't live here alone together without gossip," he said hotly.

"Let's take it as we find it and be practical. Shall I look up a companion for Stephanie, or shall I return here at Easter?"

He pondered the suggestion, frowning. Miss Quest said pleasantly:

"Please, I don't mean to interfere. You are of age, and over. But the world, if it cares to think, will remember that you and Stephanie are not related. In two years, when you return from Europe, Stephanie will be twenty and you twenty-four. And, laying aside the suggestion that an older woman's presence might be advantageous under the circumstances, who is going to control Stephanie?"

"Control her?"

"Yes, control, guide, steady her through the most critical period of her life?"

The young fellow, plainly unconvinced, looked at Miss Quest out of troubled eyes.

"Come," she said briskly, "let's have a heart-to-heart talk and find out what's ahead of us. Let's be business-like and candid. Shall we?"

"By all means."

"Then we'll begin at the very beginning:

"Stephanie is a dear. But she's very young. And at twenty she will still be very, very young. What traits and talents she may have inherited from a clever, unprincipled father – my own nephew, Mr. Cleland – I don't know. God willing, there's nothing of him in her – no tendencies toward irregularities; no unmoral inclination to drift, nothing spineless and irresponsible.

"As for Stephanie's mother, I know little about her. I think she was merely a healthy young animal without education, submitting to and following instinctively the first man who attracted her. Which happened to be my unhappy nephew."

She shook her head and gazed musingly at the window where the sunshine fell.

"There are the propositions; this is the problem, Mr. Cleland. Now, let us look at the conditions which bear directly on it. Am I boring you?"

"No," he said. "It's very necessary to consider this matter. I'm just beginning to realize that I'm really not fitted to guide and control Stephanie."

She laughed.

"What a confession! But do you know that, all over the world, men are beginning to come to similar conclusions? Conditions absolutely without precedent have arisen within a few brief years. And Stephanie, just emerging into womanhood, is about to face them. The day of the woman has dawned.

"Ours is a restless sex," continued Miss Quest grimly. "And this is the age of our opportunity. I don't know just what it is that animates my enfranchised sex, now that the world has suddenly flung open doors which have confined us through immemorial ages – each woman to her own narrow cell, privileged only to watch freedom through iron bars.

"But there runs a vast restlessness throughout the world; in every woman's heart the seeds of revolution, so long dormant, are germinating. The time has come when she is to have her fling. And she knows it!"

She shrugged her trim shoulders:

"It is the history of all enfranchisement that license and excess are often misconstrued as freedom by liberated prisoners. To find ourselves free to follow the urge of aspiration may unbalance some of us. Small wonder, too."

She sprang to her feet and began to march up and down in front of the fireplace, swinging her reticule trimmed with Krupp steel. Cleland rose, too.

"What was all wrong in our Victorian mothers' days is all right now," she said, smilingly. "We're going to get the vote; that's a detail already discounted. And we've already got about everything else except the right to say how many children we shall bring into the world. That will surely come, too; that, and the single standard of morality for both sexes. Both are bound to come. And then," she smiled again brightly at Cleland, "I have an idea that we shall quiet down and outgrow our restlessness. But I don't know."

"What you say is very interesting," murmured the young fellow.

"Yes, it's interesting. It is significant, too. So is the problem of making something out of defectives. After a while there won't be any defectives when we begin to breed children as carefully as we breed cattle. Sex equality will hasten sensible discussion; discussion will result in laws. A, B and C may have babies; D, E and F may not. And, after a few generations, the entire feminine alphabet can have and may have babies. And if, here and there, a baby is not wanted, there'll be no sniveling sectarian conference to threaten the wrath of Mumbo-Jumbo!"

Miss Quest halted in her hearth-rug promenade:

"The doom of hypocrisy, sham and intolerance is already in sight. Hands off and mind your business are written on the wall. So I suppose Stephanie will think we ought to keep our hands off her and mind our business if she wishes to go on the stage or dawdle before an easel in a Washington Mews studio some day."

Her logic made Cleland anxious again.

"The trouble lies in this intoxicating perfume we call liberty. We women sniff it afar, and it makes us restless and excitable. It's a heady odour. Only a level mind can enjoy it with discretion. Otherwise, it incites to excess. That's all. We're simply not yet used to liberty. And that is what concerns me about Stephanie – with her youth, and her intelligence, her undoubted gifts and – her possible inheritance from a fascinating rascal of a father.

"Well, that is the girl; there are the conditions; this is the problem… And now I must be going."

She held out her smartly gloved hand; retained his for a moment:

"You won't sail before Stephanie's Easter vacation?"

"No; I'll probably sail about May first."

"In that case, I'll come on from Bayport, and you won't need to find a companion for Stephanie. After you sail, she'll come to me, anyway."

"For hospital training," he nodded.

"For two years of it. It's her choice."

"Yes, I know. She prefers it to college."

Miss Quest said very seriously:

"For a girl like Stephanie, it will be an excellent thing. It will give her a certain steadiness, a foundation in life, to have a profession on which she may rely in case of adversity. To care for and to be responsible for others develops character. She already seems interested."

"She prefers it to graduating from Vassar."

Miss Quest nodded, then looking him directly in the eyes:

"I want to say one thing. May I?"

"Certainly."

"Then, above all, be patient with Stephanie. Will you?"

"Of course!" he replied, surprised.

"I am looking rather far into the future," continued Miss Quest. "You will change vastly in two years. She will, too. Cherish the nice friendship between you. A man's besetting sin is impatience of women. Try to avoid it. Be patient, even when you differ with her. She's going to be a handful – I may as well be frank. I can see that – see it plainly. She's going to be a handful for me – and you must always try to keep her affections.

"It's the only way to influence any woman. I know my sex. You're a typical man, entirely dependent on logic and reason – or think you are. All men think they are. But logic and reason are of no use in dealing with us unless you have our affections, too. Good-bye. I do like you. I'll come again at Easter."

Alone in the quiet house, with his memories for companions, the young fellow tried to face the future; – tried to learn to endure the staggering blow which his father's death had dealt him, – strove resolutely to shake off the stunned indifference, the apathy through which he seemed to see the world as through a fog.

Gradually, as the black winter months passed, and as he took up his work again and pegged away at it, the inevitable necessity for distraction developed, until at last the deadly stillness of the house became unendurable, driving him out once more into the world of living men.

So the winter days dragged, and the young fellow faced them alone in the sad, familiar places where, but yesterday, he had moved and talked with his only and best beloved.