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By Root 797 0

went on speaking in spite of the sudden hush as others strained to hear what she was going to say. “We must talk together, Mrs. Underhill.” She put out an elegant hand, long-fingered, jeweled with rings, and drew Isadora away from the group in which they had found themselves more or less by chance. “Time is terribly short,” she went on. “We must go far beyond the core of the party if we are to do any real good. Abolishing fees for elementary schooling last year has already had wonderful effects, but it is only a beginning. We must do much more. Education for all is the only lasting answer to poverty.” She drew in her breath and then plunged on. “We must make a way for women to be able to restrict their families. Poverty and exhaustion, both physical and mental, are the unavoidable outcomes of having child after child whom you have not strength to care for nor money to feed and clothe.” She regarded Isadora with candid challenge in her eyes again. “And I am sorry if that is against your religious convictions, but being a bishop’s wife with a residence provided for you is a far cry from being in one or two rooms with no water and little fire and trying to keep a dozen children clean and fed.”

“Would an eight-hour day help or hurt that?” Isadora asked, willing herself not to take offense at things which were, after all, irrelevant to the real issue.

Rose’s arched eyebrows rose. “How could it possibly make it worse? Every laborer, man or woman, should be protected against exploitation!” The anger flared up in her face, pink color across her white skin.

Isadora was intending to ask Rose’s opinion rather than express any of her own, but was prevented in either by their being joined by a friend of Rose who greeted her with affection. She was introduced to Isadora as Mrs. Swann, and in return presented her companion, a woman of perhaps forty, with the confidence of maturity and still sufficient of the bloom of youth to attract the eye of most men. There was a grace in the way she held her dark head, and her deportment was that of someone who is quite certain of herself, yet interested in others.

“Mrs. Octavia Cavendish,” Mrs. Swann said with a touch of pride.

Isadora realized only just before speaking that the newcomer must be a widow to be so addressed. “Are you interested in politics, Mrs. Cavendish?” she asked. Since the evening was to that end it was a natural assumption.

“Only so far as it changes laws, I hope to the benefit of all,” Mrs. Cavendish replied. “It takes great wisdom to see ahead what will be the results of our actions. Sometimes the most nobly inspired paths are disastrous in their unforeseen ends.”

Rose opened her remarkable eyes very wide. “Mrs. Underhill was about to tell us how the eight-hour day could be ill,” she said, staring at Mrs. Cavendish. “I fear perhaps she is a Conservative at heart!”

“Really, Rose,” Mrs. Swann cautioned her with a quick glance of apology towards Isadora.

“No!” Rose said impatiently. “It is time we were less mealymouthed and said what we really mean. Is honesty too much to ask—indeed, to demand? Have we not the duty to pose questions and challenge the answers?”

“Rose, eccentricity is one thing, but you risk going too far!” Mrs. Swann said with a nervous hiccup. She placed a hand on Rose’s arm but it was impatiently shaken off. “Mrs. Underhill may not—”

“Don’t you?” Rose asked, her flashing smile returning briefly.

Before Isadora could answer, Mrs. Cavendish stepped in. “It is very hard to be overworked, and quite unjust,” she said smoothly. “But it is still better than having no work at all . . .”

“That is extortion!” Rose said with a wild anger cutting in her voice.

Mrs. Cavendish kept her temper admirably. “If it is done deliberately, then of course it is. But if an employer is facing falling profits and more intense competition, then he cannot afford to increase his costs. And if he does, then he will lose his business altogether and his employees will lose their places. We need to keep an Empire, now that we have one, whether we want it or not.” She smiled to rid