eased._) It seems so strange that you, being what you are,
affiliated as you are, should be interested in the welfare of the
common people.

{Margaret}

(_Judicially._) I do seem like a traitor in my own camp. But as
father said a while ago, I, too, have dreamed my dream. I did it
as a girl--Plato's _Republic_, Moore's _Utopia_--I was steeped in
all the dreams of the social dreamers.

(_During all that follows of her speech, Knox is keenly
interested, his eyes glisten and he hangs on her words._)

And I dreamed that I, too, might do something to bring on the
era of universal justice and fair play. In my heart I dedicated
myself to the cause of humanity. I made Lincoln my hero-he
still is. But I was only a girl, and where was I to find
this cause?--how to work for it? I was shut in by a thousand
restrictions, hedged in by a thousand conventions. Everybody
laughed at me when I expressed the thoughts that burned in me.
What could I do? I was only a woman. I had neither vote nor right
of utterance. I must remain silent. I must do nothing. Men, in
their lordly wisdom, did all. They voted, orated, governed. The
place for women was in the home, taking care of some lordly man
who did all these lordly things.

{Knox}

You understand, then, why I am for equal suffrage.

{Margaret}

But I learned--or thought I learned. Power, I discovered early.
My father had power. He was a magnate--I believe that is the
correct phrase. Power was what I needed. But how? I was a woman.
Again I dreamed my dream--a modified dream. Only by marriage
could I win to power. And there you have the clew to me and what
I am and have become. I met the man who was to become my husband.
He was clean and strong and an athlete, an outdoor man, a wealthy
man and a rising politician. Father told me that if I married him
he would make him the power of his state, make him governor, send
him to the United States Senate. And there you have it all.

{Knox}

Yes?---- Yes?

{Margaret}

I married. I found that there were greater forces at work than I
had ever dreamed of. They took my husband away from me and molded
him into the political lieutenant of my father. And I was without
power. I could do nothing for the cause. I was beaten. Then it
was that I got a new vision. The future belonged to the children.
There I could play my woman's part. I was a mother. Very well. I
could do no better than to bring into the world a healthy son and
bring him up to m