My look of amazement arrested his attention.
"Why are you so surprised?" he asked. "Do not your women engage in business?"
"Well, not to such an extraordinary degree," I replied. "We have women who work in various ways, but there are very few of them who have large business interests, and they are not entrusted with important public affairs, such as municipal government and the management of schools!"
"Oh!" returned Severnius with the note of one who does not quite understand. "Would you mind telling me why? Is it because they are incapable, or--unreliable?"
Neither of the words he chose struck me pleasantly as applied to my countrywomen. I remembered that I was the sole representative of the Earth on Mars, and that it stood me in hand to be careful about the sort of impressions I gave out. It was as if I were on the witness' stand, under oath. Facts must tell the story, not opinions,--though personally I have great confidence in my opinions. I thought of our government departments where women are the experts, and of their almost spotless record for faithfulness and honesty, and replied:
"They are both capable and reliable, in as far as they have had experience. But their chances have been circumscribed, and I believe they lack the inclination to assume grave public duties. I fear I cannot make you understand,--our women are so different, so unlike your sister."
Elodia was always my standard of comparison.
"Perhaps you men take care of them all," suggested Severnius, "and they have grown dependent. We have some such women here."
"No, I do not think it is that entirely," said I. "For in my city alone, more than a hundred and seventy thousand women support not only themselves, but others who are dependent upon them."
"Not so-called. I mean intelligent, selfrespecting women; teachers, clerks, stenographers, type-writers."
"I should think it would be more agreeable, and easier, for them to engage in business as our women do."
"No doubt it would," I replied, feeling myself driven to a close scrutiny of the Woman Question, as we call it, for the first time in my life. For I saw that my friend was deeply interested and wanted to get at the literal truth. "But the women of my country," I went on, "the self-supporting ones, do not have control of money. They have a horror of speculation, and shrink from taking risks and making ventures, the failure of which would mean loss or ruin to others. A woman's right to make her living is restricted to the powers within herself, powers of brain and hand. She is a beginner, you know. She has not yet learned to make money by the labor of others; she does not know how to manipulate those who are less intelligent and less capable than herself, and to turn their ignorance and helplessness to her own account. Perhaps I had better add that she is more religious than man, and is sustained in this seeming injustice by something she calls conscience."