"I can't imagine," Mostyn answered, heartily enjoying her gravity of tone and manner.
"Why, they are not only holding me to my agreement, but they have selected a topic for discussion which of all subjects under the sun is completely beyond me. They are doing it for a joke, and they expect me to acknowledge defeat. I've been at the point all day of ignoring the whole business, and yet somehow it nearly kills me to give in. I laugh when I think about it, for the joke is on me, sure enough."
"But the subject," Mostyn urged her, "what is it?"
"Have women the right to vote?'" dropped from the girl's smiling lips.
"Oh, great! great!" the banker laughed. "I hope you are not going to let a few silly men back you down."
"I don't really see how I am going to escape going through with it," Dolly said. "They have sent notices all up and down the valley, and the house will be full. Look! there goes a wagon-load now. Two things are bothering me. I came out here to try to write down a few points, but not one idea has come in my head. That's the first stumbling- block, and the other is even more serious. You see, up to this time my side has generally won because when it was left to the audience the women all stood up and voted for me. I've seen them so anxious to help me out that they would force their children to stand on the benches so their heads would be counted."
"But aren't the women going to-night?" Mostyn inquired.
"More than ever got inside that house," Dolly said, despondently, "but, as much as they like me and think I know what I'm talking about as a general rule, they won't be on my side of this argument. They think woman's suffrage originated in the bad place. They will think I'm plumb crazy, but I can't help it. I understand that a lawyer doesn't have actually to believe in his side of a question--he simply makes as big a display of the evidence as he can muster up. Warren Wilks and the other men are tickled to death over the fun they are going to have with me to-night."
"I wouldn't miss it for any amount of money," Mostyn said, winking at the contented smoker on his right.
"I wouldn't, nuther," Webb chuckled. "Warren Wilks is a funny duck on the platform, an' he don't let a chance slip to git a joke on Dolly. She has downed him several times, but I reckon he'll swat 'er good an' heavy to-night."