A few women in their "Sunday best" were looking at the books and periodicals, or gossiping together, but they were not so numerous as the men--respectable working-men for the most part; some of them smoking, some reading or talking, without their pipes. In one little group Lesley recognized, with a start, that her father was the centre of attraction. He was sitting, as the other men were, and he was talking: the musical notes of his cultivated voice rose clearly above the hum of rougher and huskier voices. Lesley gathered that some proposition had been made which he was combating.
"No," he said, "I won't have it. Look here--did you open this club, or did I?"
"Then I'll have my say in the management. Some of you want the women turned out, do you? It's the curse of modern life, the curse of English and all other society, that you do want the women turned out, you men, where-ever you go. And the reason is that women are better than you are. They are purer, nobler, more conscientious than you, and therefore you don't want them with you when you take your pleasures. Eh?"
There was a melodious geniality about the last monosyllable which made the men smile in spite of themselves.
"'T'ain't that," said one of them, awkwardly. "It's because they're apt to neglect their 'omes if they come out of an afternoon or an evening like we do."
"Not they!" said Mr. Brooke. "To come out now and then is to make them love their homes, man. They'll put more heart in to their work, if they have a little rest and enjoyment now and then, as you do. Besides--you've got hold of a wrong principle. The women are not your slaves and servants; they ought not to be. They are your companions, your helpers. The more they are in sympathy with you, the better they will help you. Don't keep your wives out of the brighter moments of your lives, else they will forget how to feel with you, and help you when darker moments come!"
There was a pause; and then a man, with rather a sullen face--evidently one of the malcontents--said, with a growl,
"Fine talk, gov'nor. It'll end in our wives leaving us, like they say yours done."
There was an instant hiss and groan of disapproval. So marked, indeed, that the man rose to shoulder his way to the door. Evidently he was not a popular character.