"You?" I demanded. "Were you in that march?"
"I most certainly was," she said quietly. Having shot her bolt she was regarding me gravely now, with the merest glint of amused delight somewhere in her gray-blue eyes. "Why not?" she asked. "I believe in it, I want the vote. Why shouldn't I march? I paraded," she added serenely, "in the college section right up near the head of the line. That's why I'm home so early. I'm afraid I was quite conspicuous, for you see I'm rather small and I had to take long swinging strides to keep in step. But I soon got used to it, and I thoroughly enjoyed the cheers. We waved back at them with our flags."
"But," I cried, "my darling wife! Why didn't you tell me about it ahead?"
"Because"--she came close up to me and said quite confidentially, "we do these things all by ourselves. You don't mean to say that you mind it, dear?"
I lost about five seconds and then I did exactly right. I took her in my arms and laughed and called my wife by many names and said she couldn't worry me, that I didn't mind it in the least, was proud of her and so on. In short, to use a slang expression, I distinctly got away with it. Moreover, I soon felt what I said. I was honestly rather proud of my wife for having had the nerve to march. It must have been quite a struggle, for she was no born marcher.
And I was glad that I was proud. Another proof of my tolerance--which was the more grateful to me just now because a magazine man I admired had genially hinted the other day that I was rather narrow.
"Only for a moment," she said. "Sue was one of the marshals and she was all up and down the lines. She's coming to supper with many paraders."
"No you're not. She's bringing some men paraders too."
Men paraders! Now I could smile. I had earned the right, I had been broad. But after all, there are limits. I could see those chaps parading with women. I knew them, I had seen them before, for Sue had often brought them here. I enjoyed myself immensely--till Eleanore shot another bolt.
"Smile on, funny one," she said. "You'll be in line yourself in a year."
"I wonder." She looked at me in a curious way. The mirth went slowly out of her eyes. "There are so many queer new ideas crowding in all around us," she said. "And I know you, Billy, oh, so well--so much better than you know yourself. I know that when you once feel a thing you're just the kind to go into it hard. I'm not speaking of suffrage now--that's only one nice little part. I mean this whole big radical movement--all the kind of thing your friend Joe Kramer stood for." She put her arms about my neck. "Don't get too radical, husband mine--you're so nice and funny now, my love."