"That's just it," Herminia answered, leaning back on the rustic
seat like David's Madame Recamier. "You put your finger on the
real blot when you said those words, developing equally every fibre
of your natures. That's what nobody yet wants us women to do.
They're trying hard enough to develop us intellectually; but
morally and socially they want to mew us up just as close as ever.
And they won't succeed. The zenana must go. Sooner or later, I'm
sure, if you begin by educating women, you must end by emancipating
them."
"So I think too," Alan answered, growing every moment more
interested. "And for my part, it's the emancipation, not the mere
education, that most appeals to me."
"Yes, I've always felt that," Herminia went on, letting herself out
more freely, for she felt she was face to face with a sympathetic
listener. "And for that reason, it's the question of social and
moral emancipation that interests me far more than the mere
political one,--woman's rights as they call it. Of course I'm a
member of all the woman's franchise leagues and everything of that
sort,--they can't afford to do without a single friend's name on
their lists at present; but the vote is a matter that troubles me
little in itself, what I want is to see women made fit to use it.
After all, political life fills but a small and unimportant part in
our total existence. It's the perpetual pressure of social and
ethical restrictions that most weighs down women."
Alan paused and looked hard at her. "And they tell me," he said in
a slow voice, "you're the Dean of Dunwich's daughter!"
Herminia laughed lightly,--a ringing girlish laugh. Alan noticed
it with pleasure. He felt at once that the iron of Girton had not
entered into her soul, as into so many of our modern young women's.
There was vitality enough left in her for a genuine laugh of
innocent amusement. "Oh yes," she said, merrily; "that's what I
always answer to all possible objectors to my ways and ideas. I
reply with dignity, '_I_ was brought up in the family of a
clergyman of the Church of England.'"
"And what does the Dean say to your views?" Alan interposed
doubtfully.
Herminia laughed again. If her eyes were profound, two dimples
saved her. "I thought you were with us," she answered with a
twinkle; "now, I begin to doubt it. You don't expect a man of
twenty-two to be governed in all things, especially in the
formation of his abstract ideas, by his father's opinions. Why
then a woman?"