r to his driver
and got in beside her. They trotted briskly around the corner on to the
Avenue, and as it was misting heavily the driver let down the glass
shield. It seemed cozy and pleasant to jog home from a party in a
private cab, with an agreeable man by one's side. Quite like old times,
Milly thought!

"You'd better let me take you all the way. Where shall I say?" and he
raised the top with his stick. For a moment Milly was about to yield.
She liked the sense of having a masterful man near her, overbearing her
doubts, but she still protested,--

"No, no--it's too far. Just put me down at Columbus Circle."

The man hesitated, looked at Milly curiously, then gave the driver the
direction. Milly wondered why he had not insisted as she had expected he
would or did not again suggest driving her out, when they had reached
the subway station. There was a time when men would not have taken no
for an answer. But he didn't--nor even ask her name. Instead he
courteously helped her to alight and raising his hat drove off.

* * * * *

She was depressed going up-town in the crowded, smelly, shrieking train.
The meeting had not been as thrilling as she had anticipated. Hazel
would probably scold her to-morrow for not coming forward and meeting
the leaders. But she felt that the Woman Forward movement had little to
offer her in her perplexities. Hers was part of that economic
maladjustment that the good-looking stranger had talked about, and even
with the suffrage it would take generations to do anything for women
like her.

What really depressed her most was the fact that her unknown
acquaintance had not considered it worth while to find out her name and
pave the way for further relations. She realized cynically that for the
present at any rate the woman question came down to just this: men could
do many pleasant and useful things for women when they were so inclined.
And a woman failed when she could not interest a man sufficiently to
move him to make the advance. Of course Milly knew that the "modern
woman" would fiercely desire to be independent of all such male
patronage. But as Milly climbed wearily the long flight of stairs to her
apartment, feeling tired and forlorn and very much alone in the world,
she knew that in the bottom of her heart she had no wish to be "modern."
And she was even sceptical as to how sincerely the other women, like
Hazel Fredericks, desired that "complete indep