The Daughters of Danaus. Mona Caird
and learned youth!” cried Hadria, resting her chin on her hand, and peering up into the blue sky, above the temple.
“Fool!” exclaimed Algitha.
“He says,” continued Fred, determined not to spare those who were so overbearing in their scorn, “he says that girls who have ideas like yours will never get any fellow to marry them.”
Laughter loud and long greeted this announcement.
“Laughter,” observed Fred, when he could make himself heard, “is among the simplest forms of argument. Does this merry outburst imply that you don’t care a button whether you are able to get some one to marry you or not?”
“It does,” said Algitha.
“Well, so I said to Wilkins, as a matter of fact, with my nose in the air, on your behalf, and Wilkins replied, ‘Oh, it’s all very well while girls are young and good-looking to be so high and mighty, but some day, when they are left out in the cold, and all their friends married, they may sing a different tune.’ Feeling there was something in this remark,” Fred continued, “I raised my nose two inches higher, and adopted the argument that I also resort to in extremis. I laughed. ‘Well, my dear fellow,’ Wilkins observed calmly, ‘I mean no offence, but what on earth is a girl to do with herself if she doesn’t marry?’ ”
“What did you reply?” asked Ernest with curiosity.
“Oh, I said that was an unimportant detail, and changed the subject.”
Algitha was still scornful, but Hadria looked meditative.
“Harold Wilkins has a practical mind,” she observed. “After all, he is right, when you come to consider it.”
“Hadria!” remonstrated her sister, in dismay.
“We may as well be candid,” said Hadria. “There is uncommonly little that a girl can do (or rather that people will let her do) unless she marries, and that is why she so often does marry as a mere matter of business. But I wish Harold Wilkins would remember that fact, instead of insisting that it is our inherent and particular nature that urges us, one and all, to the career of Mrs. Gordon.”
Algitha was obviously growing more and more ruffled. Fred tried in vain to soothe her feelings. He joked, but she refused to see the point. She would not admit that Harold Wilkins had facts on his side.
“If one simply made up one’s mind to walk through all the hampering circumstances, who or what could stop one?” she asked.
“Algitha has evidently got some desperate plan in her head for making mincemeat of circumstances,” cried Fred, little guessing that he had stated the exact truth.
“Do you remember that Mrs. Gordon herself waged a losing battle in early days, incredible as it may appear?” asked Hadria.
Algitha nodded slowly, her eyes fixed on the ground.
“She did not originally set out with the idea of being a sort of amiable cow. She once aspired to be quite human; she really did, poor thing!”
“Then why didn’t she do it?” asked Algitha contemptuously.
“Instead of doing a thing, she had to be perpetually struggling for the chance to do it, which she never achieved, and so she was submerged. That seems to be the fatality in a woman’s life.”
“Well, there is one thing I am very sure of,” announced Algitha, leaning majestically against a column of the temple, and looking like a beautiful Greek maiden, in her simple gown, “I do not intend to be a cow. I do not mean to fight a losing battle. I will not wait at home meekly, till some fool holds out his sceptre to me.”
All eyes turned to her, in astonishment.
“But what are you going to do?” asked a chorus of voices. Hadria’s was not among them, for she knew what was coming. The debate of last night, and this morning’s discussion, had evidently brought to a climax a project that Algitha had long had in her mind, but had hesitated to carry out, on account of the distress that it would cause to her mother. Algitha’s eyes glittered, and her colour rose.
“I am not going to be hawked about the county till I am disposed of. It does not console me in the least, that all the foxes are without tails,” she went on, taking short cuts to her meaning, in her excitement. “I am going to London with Mrs. Trevelyan, to help her in her work.”
“By Jove!” exclaimed Fred. Ernest whistled. Austin stared, with open mouth.
Having recovered from the first shock of surprise, the family plied their sister with questions. She said that she had long been thinking of accepting the post offered her by Mrs. Trevelyan last year, and now she was resolved. The work was really wise, useful work among the poor, which Algitha felt she could do well. At home, there was nothing that she did that the housekeeper could not do better. She felt herself fretting and growing irritable, for mere want of some active employment. This was utterly absurd, in an overworked world. Hadria had her music and her study, at any rate, but Algitha had nothing that seemed worth doing; she did not care to paint indifferently on china; she was a mere encumbrance—a destroyer, as Hadria put it—while there was so much, so very much, that waited to be done. The younger sister made no comment.
“Next time I meet Harold Wilkins,” said Fred, drawing a long breath, “I will tell him that if a girl does not marry, she can devote herself to the poor.”
“Or that she can remain to be the family consolation, eh, Hadria? By Jove, what a row there will be!”
The notion of Hadria in the capacity of the family consolation, created a shout of laughter. It had always been her function to upset foregone conclusions, overturn orthodox views, and generally disturb the conformity of the family attitude. Now the sedate and established qualities would be expected of her. Hadria must be the stay and hope of the house!
Fred continued to chuckle, at intervals, over the idea.
“It does seem to indicate rather a broken-down family!” said Ernest.
“I wish one of you boys would undertake the position instead of laughing at me,” exclaimed Hadria in mock resentment. “I wish you would go to eternal tennis-parties, and pay calls, and bills, and write notes, and do little useless necessary things, more or less all day. I wish you had before you the choice between that existence and the career of Mrs. Gordon, with the sole chance of escape from either fate, in ruthlessly trampling upon the bleeding hearts of two beloved parents!”
“Thank you kindly,” said Fred, “but we infinitely prefer to laugh at you.”
“Man’s eternal reply to woman, admirably paraphrased!” commented Hadria.
Everyone was anxious to know when Algitha intended to go to London. Nobody doubted for a moment that she would hold to her purpose; as Fred said, she was so “beastly obstinate.”
Algitha had not fixed any time. It would depend on her mother. She wished to make things as little painful as possible. That it was her duty to spare her pain altogether by remaining at home, Algitha refused to admit. She and Hadria had thought out the question from all sides. The work she was going to do was useful, but she did not justify herself on that ground. She claimed the right to her life and her liberty, apart from what she intended to do with either. She owed it to her own conscience alone to make good use of her liberty. “I don’t want to pose as a philanthropist,” she added, “though I honestly do desire to be of service. I want to spread my wings. And why should I not? Nobody turns pale when Ernest wants to spread his. How do I know what life is like, or how best to use it, if I remain satisfied with my present ignorance? How can I even appreciate what I possess, if I have nothing to compare it with? Of course, the truly nice and womanly thing to do, is to remain at home, waiting to be married. I have elected to be unwomanly.”
“I wonder how all this will turn out,” said Ernest,