out Woman Suffrage, for instance. You remember that
night at the Foas', and what I remarked afterwards about what you all
said?"

"Yes, I remember," said Audrey. "But can _you_ remember it? Fancy you
remembering a thing like that!"

"I remember every word that was said. It changed me.... Not at first. Oh,
no! Not for several days, perhaps weeks. I fought against it. Then I said
to myself, 'How absurd to fight against it!' ... Well, I've come to believe
in women having the vote. You've no more stanch supporter than I am. I
_want_ women to have the vote. And you're the first person I've ever said
that to. I want _you_ to have the vote."

He smiled at her, and she saw scores and scores of excellent qualities in
his smile; she could not believe that he had any defect whatever. His
secret was precious to her. She considered that he had confided it to her
in a manner both distinguished and poetical. He had shown a quality which
no youth could have shown. Youths were inferior, crude, incomplete. Not
that Mr. Gilman was not young! Emphatically he was young, but her
conception of the number of years comprised in youthfulness had been
enlarged. She saw, as in a magical enlightenment, that forty was young,
fifty was young, any age was young provided it had the right gestures. As
for herself, she was without age. The obvious fact that Mr. Gilman was her
slave touched her; it saddened her, but sweetly; it gave her a new sense of
responsibility.

She said:

"I still don't see why this change of view should make you unhappy. I
should have thought it would have just the opposite effect."

"It has altered all my desires," he replied. "Do you know, I'm not really
interested in this new yacht now! And that's the truth."

"Mr. Gilman!" she checked him. "How can you say such a thing?"

It now appeared that she was not a nice girl. If she had been a nice girl
she would not have comprehended what Mr. Gilman was ultimately driving at.
The word "marriage" would never have sounded in her brain. And she would
have been startled and shocked had Mr. Gilman even hinted that there was
such a word in the dictionary. But not being, after all, a nice girl, she
actually dwelt on the notion of marriage with somebody exactly like Mr.
Gilman. She imagined how fine and comfortable and final it would be. She
admitted that despite her riches and her independence she would be and
could be simply naught until she possessed a man and could show him to the