“Did they consult you before deciding to refuse your suggestion?” asked Jane, calmly and thoughtfully.

“They did not,” trumpeted Aunt Augusta.

“Then wouldn’t it be the most regular way to proceed to get an acceptance of the invitation from the Commission and then extend them one to be present?” pronounced Jane, coolly, seemingly totally unconscious that she was exploding; a bomb shell.

“It would, and we will consider it so settled,” answered Aunt Augusta, dominatingly.

This quick and revolutionary decision gave me a shock.  I could see that a woman doesn’t like to feel that there is a stick of dynamite between her and a man, when she puts her head down under his chin or her cheek to his, but advanced women must suffer that.  Still I’m glad that the Crag is on our side of the fence.  I felt sorry for Mamie and Caroline—­and Sallie looked a tragedy.

In fact, a shade of depression was about to steal over the spirits of the meeting when Aunt Augusta luckily called for the discussion of plans for the rally.

Feeding other human beings is the natural, instituted, physiological, pathological, metaphysical, and spiritual outlet for a woman’s nature, and that is why she is so happy when she gets out her family receipt book for a called rehearsal for the functioning of her hospitality.  The revolution went home happy and excited over the martialing of their flesh pots.

I’m glad Jane is asleep across the hall to-night.  If I had had to shoulder all this outbreak by myself I would have compromised by instituting a campaign of wheedling, the like of which this town never suffered before, and then when this glorious rally was finally pulled off, the cajoled masculine population would have fairly swelled with pride over having done it!

Of course, by every known test of conduct and economics, their attitude in the matter is entirely right.  Men work to all given points in straight, clear-cut, logical lines only to find women at the point of results waiting for them, with unforeseen culminations, which would have been impossible to them.

And I am also glad the Crag is partly responsible for starting, or at least unconsciously aiding, this scheme in high finance of mine; and he is also in reality the silent sponsor for this unhatched revolution.  I am deeply contented to go to sleep with that comforting; thought tucked under my pillow.

CHAPTER VIII

AN ATTAINED TO-MORROW

I’ve changed my mind about a woman’s being like a whirlwind.  The women of now are the attained to-morrow that the world since the beginning has been trying to catch up with.  Jane is that, and then the day after, too, and what she has done to Glendale in these two weeks has stunned the old town into a trance of delight and amazement.  She has recreated us, breathed the breath of modernity into us, and started the machine up the grade of civilization at a pace that makes me hold my breath for fear of something jolting us.