come?'
'Yes, dear. It is here.'
'And I have my stout. Come along up to my room now. This smell is too abominable. But we must be ready for him when he comes back. If we sit at the window we shall see him coming down the road.'
The fresh morning air, and the genial company of the Admiral had caused the Doctor to forget his troubles, and he came back about midday in an excellent humor. As he opened the hall door the vile smell of chemicals which had spoilt his breakfast met him with a redoubled virulence. He threw open the hall window, entered the dining- room, and stood aghast at the sight which met his eyes.
Ida was still sitting among her bottles, with a lit cigarette in her left hand and a glass of stout on the table beside her. Clara, with another cigarette, was lounging in the easy chair with several maps spread out upon the floor around. Her feet were stuck up on the coal scuttle, and she had a tumblerful of some reddish-brown composition on the smoking table close at her elbow. The Doctor gazed from one to the other of them through the thin grey haze of smoke, but his eyes rested finally in a settled stare of astonishment upon his elder and more serious daughter.
'Clara!' he gasped, 'I could not have believed it!'
'What is it, papa?'
'You are smoking!'
'Trying to, papa. I find it a little difficult, for I have not been used to it.'
'But why, in the name of goodness-'
'Mrs. Westmacott recommends it.'
'Oh, a lady of mature years may do many things which a young girl must avoid.'
'Oh, no,' cried Ida, 'Mrs. Westmacott says that there should be one law for all. Have a cigarette, pa?'
'No, thank you. I never smoke in the morning.'
'No? Perhaps you don't care for the brand. What are these, Clara?'
'Egyptians.'
'Ah, we must have some Richmond Gems or Turkish. I wish, pa, when you go into town, you would get me some Turkish.'
'I will do nothing of the kind. I do not at all think that it is a fitting habit for young ladies. I do not agree with Mrs. Westmacott upon the point.'
'Really, pa! It was you who advised us to imitate her.'
'But with discrimination. What is it that you are drinking, Clara?'
'Rum, papa.'
'Rum? In the morning?' He sat down and rubbed his eyes as one who tries to shake off some evil dream. 'Did you say rum?'
'Yes, pa. They all drink it in the profession which I am going to take up.'
'Profession, Clara?'
'Mrs. Westmacott says that every woman should follow a calling, and that we ought to choose those which women have always avoided.'
'Quite so.'
'Well, I am going to act upon her advice. I am going to be a pilot.'
'My dear Clara! A pilot! This is too much.'
'This is a beautiful book, papa. `The Lights, Beacons, Buoys, Channels, and Landmarks of Great Britain.' Here is another, `The Master Mariner's Handbook.' You can't imagine how interesting it is.'
'You are joking, Clara. You must be joking!'
'Not at all, pa. You can't think what a lot I have learned already. I'm to carry a green light to starboard and a red to port, with a white light at the mast-head, and a flare-up every fifteen minutes.'
'Oh, won't it look pretty at night!' cried her sister.
'And I know the fog-signals. One blast means that a ship steers to starboard, two to port, three astern, four that it is unmanageable. But this man asks such dreadful questions at the end of each chapter. Listen to this: `You see a red light. The ship is on the port tack and the wind at north; what course is that ship steering to a point?''
The Doctor rose with a gesture of despair. 'I can't imagine what has come over you both,' said he.
'My dear papa, we are trying hard to live up to Mrs. Westmacott's standard.'
'Well, I must say that I do not admire the result. Your chemistry, Ida, may perhaps do no harm; but your scheme, Clara, is out of the question. How a girl of your sense could ever entertain such a notion is more than I can imagine. But I must absolutely forbid you to go further with it.'
'But, pa,' asked Ida, with an air of innocent inquiry in her big blue eyes, 'what are we to do when your commands and Mrs. Westmacott's advice are opposed? You told us to obey her. She says that when women try to throw off their shackles, their fathers, brothers and husbands are the very first to try to rivet them on again, and that in such a matter no man has any authority.'
'Does Mrs. Westmacott teach you that I am not the head of my own house?' The Doctor flushed, and his grizzled hair bristled in his anger.
'Certainly. She says that all heads of houses are relics of the dark ages.'
The Doctor muttered something and stamped his foot upon the carpet. Then without a word he passed out into the garden and his daughters could see him striding furiously up and down, cutting off the heads of the flowers with a switch.
'Oh, you darling! You played your part so splendidly!' cried Ida.
'But how cruel it is! When I saw the sorrow and surprise in his eyes I very nearly put my arms about him and told him all. Don't you think we have done enough?'
'No, no, no. Not nearly enough. You must not turn weak now, Clara. It is so funny that I should be leading you. It is quite a new experience. But I know I am right. If we go an as we are doing, we shall be able to say all our lives that we have saved him. And if we don't, oh, Clara, we should never forgive ourselves.'
Chapter 10 – Women Of The Future
From that day the Doctor's peace was gone. Never was a quiet and orderly household transformed so suddenly into a bear garden, or a happy man turned into such a completely miserable one. He had never realized before how entirely his daughters had shielded him from all the friction of life. Now that they had not only ceased to protect him, but had themselves become a source of trouble to him, he began to understand how great the blessing was which he had enjoyed, and to sigh for the happy days before his girls had come under the influence of his neighbor.
'You don't look happy,' Mrs. Westmacott had remarked to him one morning. 'You are pale and a little off color. You should come with me for a ten mile spin upon the tandem.'
'I am troubled about my girls.' They were walking up and down in the garden. From time to time there sounded from the house behind them the long, sad wail of a French horn.
'That is Ida,' said he. 'She has taken to practicing on that dreadful instrument in the intervals of her chemistry. And Clara is quite as bad. I declare it is getting quite unendurable.'
'Ah, Doctor, Doctor!' she cried, shaking her forefinger, with a gleam of her white teeth. 'You must live up to your principles-you must give your daughters the same liberty as you advocate for other women.'
'Liberty, madam, certainly! But this approaches to license.'
'The same law for all, my friend.' She tapped him reprovingly on the arm with her sunshade. 'When you were twenty your father did not, I presume, object to your learning chemistry or playing a musical instrument. You would have thought it tyranny if he had.'
