"I think that you worry," said the Fabian, "much too much about that play. I don't believe there's the slightest prospect that he'll think it fit to be produced."
The woman reformer was talking with Molly. "Yes; it's a long struggle. We've been at it since the 'fifties--just as you have been in America. A long, long time. The Movement in both countries is a grey-haired woman of almost sixty years. We've needed what they say we have--patience. Sometimes I think we've been too patient. You younger women have got to come in and take hold and give what perhaps the older type couldn't give--organization and wider knowledge and modern courage. We've given the old-time courage all right, and you'll have to have the patience and staying qualities, too;--but there's needed now a higher heart and a freer step than we could give in that world that we're coming out of."
"I think that I've always thought it right," said Molly, "but I've never really come out and said so, or become identified in any way.--Of course, it isn't thinking so very positively if you haven't done that--"
"It is like that with almost every one. Diffused thought--and then, suddenly one day, something happens or another mind touches yours, and out of the mist there gathers form, determination, action. You're all right, my dear! Only, I hope when you go home you will speak out, join some organization--That is the simple, right thing that every one can do. Concerted effort is the effort that tells to-day."
"Are you speaking," asked Hagar Ashendyne, "of the Suffrage Movement?"
They were back in the drawing-room, all gathered more or less closely around a light fire upon the hearth, kindled for the comfort of Americans who always found England "so cold." It softened and brightened all the room, quaint and old-fashioned, where, for a hundred years, distinguished quiet people had come and gone.
"Yes," said the older woman. "Are you interested?"
She had not spoken much at dinner, but had sat, a pearl of listeners, deep, soft eyes upon each discourser in turn. There was in the minds of all an interest and curiosity regarding her. Her work was very good. She had personality to an extraordinary degree.
Now she spoke in a voice that had a little of the Ashendyne golden drawl. "I have been--in the last eight years--oh, all over! Europe, yes; but more especially, it seems to me, looking back, the Orient. Egypt, all North Africa, Turkey and Persia, Japan and India. Yes, and Europe, too; Greece and Italy and Spain, the mid-Continent and the North. Around the world--a little of Spanish America, a little of the Islands. Sometimes long in one place, sometimes only a few days.... Everywhere it was always the same.... The Social Organism with a shrivelled side."