ow to
fold my ballot, and attended me as if we were at a concert. When I came
away, I took a street-car home, and sent my carriage for several ladies
who otherwise would not have come."

"And you," said the countess, turning to Mrs. Jimmie.

"It was in a barber shop," she said, laughing. "When I went in, the men
had their feet on the table, their hats on their heads, and they were
all smoking, but at my entrance all these things changed. Hats came off,
cigars were laid down, and feet disappeared. I was politely treated, and
enjoyed it immensely."

"How very interesting," said Tolstoy. "But are there not societies for
and against suffrage? Why do your women combine against it?"

"Because American women have not awakened to the meaning of good
citizenship, and they prefer chivalry to justice, regardless of the love
of country. I never belonged to any suffrage society, never wrote or
spoke or talked about it. I think the responsibility of voting would be
heavy and often disagreeable, but, if the women were enfranchised, I
would vote from a sense of duty, just as I think many others would; and,
as to the good which might accrue, I think you will agree with me that
women's standards are higher than men's. There would be far less
bribery in politics than there is now."

"Is there much bribery?" asked Tolstoy.

"Unfortunately, I suppose there is. Have you heard how the ex-Speaker of
the House of Representatives, Tom Reed, defines an honest man in
politics? 'An honest man is a man that will stay bought!'"

There is no use in denying the truth. Tolstoy is always the teacher and
the author. I could not imagine him the husband and the father. He
seemed in the act of getting copy, and had a way of asking a question,
and then scrutinising both the question and the answer as one who had
set a mechanical toy in motion by winding it up. Tolstoy would make an
excellent reporter for an American newspaper. He could obtain an
interview with the most reticent politician. But I had a feeling that
his methods were as the methods of Goethe.

His wife evidently does not share his own opinion of himself. She
listened with obvious impatience to the conversation, then she drew Bee
and Mrs. Jimmie aside, and they were soon in the midst of an animated
discussion of the Rue de la Paix.

Tolstoy overheard snatches of their talk without a sign of disapproval.
I have seen a big Newfoundland watch the graceful antics of a kitten
with the same