III
They walked down the street together, and first Comrade Baskerville
shivered with horror at the "seam-squirrels", and then exclaimed
with delight over the conversion of "Dead-eye Mike" to Socialism,
and then made merry over the singing of the Internationale in the
police-station. Had she discovered a "character" in this seemingly
insignificant little machinist? At any rate, she plied him with
questions about his past life and his ideas. When he told her of his
starved and neglected childhood, she murmured sympathetically, and
it seemed to the fascinated Jimmie that here was a woman who
understood instinctively all the cravings of his soul. She laid her
hand on his arm, and it was as if an angel were touching
him--strange little thrills ran like currents of electricity all
over him.
Yes, Comrade Baskerville could appreciate his sufferings, because
she had suffered too. She had had a stepmother, and had run away
from home at an early age and fought her own way. That was why she
stood so firmly for woman's emancipation--she knew the slavery of
her sex through bitter experience. There were many men who believed
in sex-equality as a matter of words, but had no real conception of
it in action; as for the women--well, you might see right here in
the local the most narrow, bourgeois ideas dominating their minds.
Jimmie did not know what ideas Comrade Baskerville meant, but he
knew that her voice was musical and full of quick changes that made
him shiver.
He was supposed to be taking her home; but he had no idea where she
lived, and apparently she had no idea either, for they just wandered
on and on, talking about all the wonderful new ideas that were
stirring the minds of men and women. Did Comrade Higgins believe in
trial marriages? Comrade Higgins had never heard of this wild idea
before, but he listened, and bravely concealed his dismay. What
about the children? The eager feminist answered there need not be
any children. Unwanted children were a crime! She proposed to get
the working-class women together and instruct them in the technique
of these delicate matters; and meantime, lacking the women, she was
willing to explain it to any inwardly embarrassed and quaking man
who would lend his ear.
Suddenly she stopped and cried, "Where are we?" And there came a
peal of merry laughter, as she discovered they had gone far astray.
They turned and set off in the right direction, and meantime the
lecture on advanced feminism continued. Poor Jimmie was in a
panic--tumbled this way and that. He had considered himself a
radical, because he believed in expropriating the expropriators; but
these plans for overthrowing the conventions and disbanding the
home--these left him aghast. And trilled into his ear by a vivid and
amazing young thing with a soft hand upon his arm and a faint
intoxicating perfume all about her! Why was she telling these things
to him? What did she mean? What? WHAT?
