in my short term of office. I—who looked to do so many good and just actions!’
‘It is difficult, more difficult than one ever suspects, for a Minister to do good. Alas! my dear, John Coryton’s case is only one of many.’
‘I know,’ replied Constance sighing. ‘Yet what can I do! Our greatest enemies are—ourselves. Oh, Professor! when I think of the men working at their looms from morning until night, cooking the dinners and looking after the children, while the women sit about the village pump or in their clubs, to talk unmeaning politics—Tell me, logician, why our theories are all so logical, and our practice is so bad?’
‘Everything,’ said the Professor, ‘in our system is rigorously logical and just. If it could not be proved scientifically—if it were not absolutely certain—the system could never be accepted by the exact intellect of cultivated women. Have not Oxford and Cambridge proclaimed this from a hundred pulpits and in a thousand text-books? My dear Lady Carlyon, you yourself proved it when you took your degree in the most brilliant essay ever written.’
The Countess winced.
‘Must we, then,’ she asked, ‘cease to believe in logic?’
‘Nay,’ replied Professor Ingleby; ‘I said not that. But every conclusion depends upon the minor premiss. That, dear Countess, in the case of our system, appears to me a little uncertain.’
‘But where is the uncertainty? Surely you will allow me, my dear Professor,’—Constance smiled—‘although I am only a graduate of two years’ standing, to know enough logic to examine a syllogism?’
‘Surely, Constance. My dear, I do not presume to doubt your reasoning powers. It was only an expression of perplexity. We are so right, and things go so wrong.’
Both ladies were silent for a few moments, and Constance sighed.
‘For instance,’ the Professor went on, ‘we were logically right when we suppressed the Sovereignty. In a perfect State, the head must also be perfect. Whom, then, could we acknowledge as head but the Perfect Woman? So we became a pure theocracy. Then, again, we were right when we abolished the Lower House; for in a perfect State, the best rulers must be those who are well-born, well-educated, and well-bred. All this requires no demonstration. Yet——’
But the Countess shook her head impatiently, and sprang to her feet.
‘Enough, Professor! I am tired of debates and the battles of phrase. The House may get on without me. And I will inquire no more, even of you, Professor, into the foundations of faith, constitution, and the rest of it. I am brave, when I rise in my place, about the unalterable principles of religious and political economy: brave words do not mean brave heart. Like so many who are outspoken, which I cannot be—at least yet—my faith is sapped, I doubt.’
‘She who doubts,’ said the Professor, ‘is perhaps near the truth.’
‘Nay; for I shall cease to investigate; I shall go down to the country and talk with my tenants.’
‘Do you learn much,’ asked the Professor, ‘of your country tenants?’
The Countess laughed.
‘I teach a great deal, at least,’ she replied. ‘Three times a-week I lecture the women on constitutional law, and twice on the best management of husbands, sons, and farm-labourers, and so forth.’
‘And you are so much occupied in teaching that you never learn? That is a great pity, Constance. Do you observe?’
‘I suppose I do. Why, Professor?’
‘Old habits linger longest in country places. What do you find to remark upon, most of all?’
‘The strange and unnatural deference,’ replied the girl, with a blush of shame, ‘paid by country women to the men. Yes, Professor, after all our teaching, and in spite of all our laws, in the country districts the old illogical supremacy of brute force still obtains, thinly disguised.’
‘My dear, who manages the farm?’
‘Why,’ said the Countess, ‘the wives are supposed to manage, but their husbands really have the whole management in their own hands.’
‘Who drives the cattle, sows the seed, reaps, ploughs?’
‘The husband, of course. It is his duty.’
‘It is,’ said the Professor. ‘Child, a few generations ago he did all this as the acknowledged head of the house. He does not forget.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, my dear Countess, that things are never so near their end as when they appear the firmest. Now, if you please, tell me something more of this great speech of yours, which so roused the wrath of assembled and hereditary wisdom. What did you intend to say?’
Constance began, in a quick, agitated way, nervously pacing the room, to run through the main points of the speech which she had prepared but had not been allowed to deliver. It was a plea for the intellectual elevation of the other sex. She pointed out that, although there was legislation in plenty for their subjection—although the greatest care was taken to prevent men from working together, conspiring, and meeting, so that most work was done in solitude or at home—and when that was not the case, a woman was always present to enforce silence—although laws had been passed to stamp out violence, and to direct the use of brute strength into useful channels—little or nothing had been done, even by private enterprise, for the education of men. She showed that the prisons were crammed with cases of young men who had ‘broken out’; that very soon they would have no more room to hold their prisoners; that the impatience of men under the severe restrictions of the law was growing greater every day, and more dangerous to order; and that, unless some remedy were found, she trembled for the consequences.
Here the Professor raised her eyes, and laughed gently.
The Countess went on with her speech. ‘I am not advocating, before this august assembly, the adoption of unconstitutional and revolutionary measures—I claim only for men such an education of their reasoning faculties as will make them reasoning creatures. I would teach them something of what we ourselves learn, so that they may reason as we reason, and obey the law because they cannot but own that the law is just. I know that we must first encourage the young men to follow a healthy instinct which bids them be strong; yet there is more in life for a man to do than to work, to dig, to carry out orders, to be a good athlete, an obedient husband, and a conscientious father.’
Here the Professor laughed again.
‘Why do you laugh, Professor?’
‘Because, my dear, you are already in the way that leads to understanding.’
‘You speak in parables.’
‘You are yet in twilight, dear Constance.’ The Professor rose and laid her hand on the young Countess’s arm. ‘Child, your generous heart has divined what your logic would have made it impossible for you to perceive—a great truth, perhaps the greatest of truths. Go on.’
‘Have I? The House would not allow me to say it, then; my own friends deserted me; a vote of want of confidence was hurriedly passed by a majority of 235 to 22;
