"But I won't go further into our situation. I want to consider
Angela's."
"You are wondering what all this has to do with the matter of Angela's
flying. And now I am going to tell you. Don't you see if they wait until
she is a woman before they cut her wings, she will be in the same case
that we are in, unable either to fly or to walk. Rather would I myself
cut her wings to-night and force her to walk. But on the other hand,
should she grow to womanhood with wings, she would be no true mate to a
wingless man unless she could also walk. No, we must see to it that she
both flies and walks. In that case, she will be a perfect mate to the
wingless man. Her strength will not be as great as his - but her
facility will be greater. She will walk well enough to keep by his side;
and her flying will supplement his powers."
"And then - oh, don't you see it - don't you see why we must fight -
fight - fight for Angela, don't you see why her wings are a sacred trust
with us? Sometime, there will be born here - - Clara," she turned her
look on Clara's excited face, "it may be the baby that's coming to you
in the spring - sometime there will be born here a boy with wings. Then
more and more often they will come until there are as many winged men as
winged women. What will become of our girl-children then if their mates
fly as well as walk away from them. There is only one way out. And there
is only one duty before us - to learn to walk that we may teach our
daughters to walk - to preserve our daughter's wings that they may teach
their sons to fly."
"But, Julia," Peachy exclaimed, after an instant of dead silence. There
was a stir of wonder, flutelike in her voice, a ripple of wonder,
flamelike on her face. "Our feet are too fine, too soft. Ralph says that
mine are only toy feet, that no creature could really get along on
them."
She kicked the loose sandals off. Tiny, slim, delicately chiseled, her
feet were of a china whiteness, except where, at the tips, the toes
showed a rose-flush or where, over the instep, the veins meandered in a
blue network.
"Of course Peachy's feet are smaller than mine," Lulu said wistfully.
"But even my workaday little pads wouldn't carry me many steps." From
under her skirts appeared a pair of capable-looking, brown feet, square,
broad but little and satin-smooth.