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I'd rather go to work. Why shouldn't a woman work, anyhow?" "At what?" inquired Hull. "Except the men who do manual labor, there are precious few men who can make a living honestly and self-respectingly. It's fortunate the women can hold aloof and remain pure." Jane laughed unpleasantly. "I'm not so sure that the women who live with men just for shelter are pure," said she. "Jen," the young man burst out, "you're ambitious--aren't you?" "Rather," replied she. "And you like the sort of thing I'm trying to do--like it and approve of it?" "I believe a man ought to succeed--get to the top." "So do I--if he can do it honorably." Jane hesitated--dared. "To be quite frank," said she, "I worship success and I despise failure. Success means strength. Failure means weakness--and I abominate weakness." He looked quietly disapproving. "You don't mean that. You don't understand what you're saying." "Perfectly," she assured him. "I'm not a bit good. Education has taken all the namby-pamby nonsense out of me." But he was not really hearing; besides, what had women to do with the realities of life? They were made to be the property of men--that was the truth, though he would never have confessed it to any woman. They were made to be possessed. "And I must possess this woman," he thought, his blood running hot. He said: "Why not help me to make a career? I can do it, Jen, with you to help." She had thought of this before--of making a career for herself, of doing the "something" her intense energy craved, through a man. The "something" must be big if it were to satisfy her; and what that was big could a woman do except through a man? But--this man. Her eyes turned thoughtfully upon him--a look that encouraged him to go on: "Politics interest you, Jen. I've seen that in the way you listen and in the questions you ask." She smiled--but not at the surface. In fact, his political talk had bored her. She knew nothing about the subject, and, so, had been as one listening to an unknown language. But, like all women, having only the narrowest range of interests herself and the things that would enable her to show off to advantage, she was used to being bored by the conversational efforts of men and to concealing her boredom. She had listened patiently and had led the conversation by slow, imperceptible stages round to the interesting personal--to the struggle for dominion over this difficu
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