In a slow and tentative way, then, Herminia crept back into

unrecognized recognition. It was all she needed. Companionship

she liked; she hated society. That mart was odious to her where

women barter their bodies for a title, a carriage, a place at the

head of some rich man's table. Bohemia sufficed her. Her terrible

widowhood, too, was rendered less terrible to her by the care of

her little one. Babbling lips, pattering feet, made heaven in her

attic. Every good woman is by nature a mother, and finds best in

maternity her social and moral salvation. She shall be saved in

child-bearing. Herminia was far removed indeed from that blatant

and decadent sect of "advanced women" who talk as though motherhood

were a disgrace and a burden, instead of being, as it is, the full

realization of woman's faculties, the natural outlet for woman's

wealth of emotion. She knew that to be a mother is the best

privilege of her sex, a privilege of which unholy manmade

institutions now conspire to deprive half the finest and noblest

women in our civilized communities. Widowed as she was, she still

pitied the unhappy beings doomed to the cramped life and dwarfed

heart of the old maid; pitied them as sincerely as she despised

those unhealthy souls who would make of celibacy, wedded or

unwedded, a sort of anti-natural religion for women. Alan's death,

however, had left Herminia's ship rudderless. Her mission had

failed. That she acknowledged herself. She lived now for Dolores.

The child to whom she had given the noble birthright of liberty was

destined from her cradle to the apostolate of women. Alone of her

sex, she would start in life emancipated. While others must say,

"With a great sum obtained I this freedom," Dolores could answer

with Paul, "But I was free born." That was no mean heritage.

Gradually Herminia got work to her mind; work enough to support her

in the modest way that sufficed her small wants for herself and her

baby. In London, given time enough, you can live down anything,

perhaps even the unspeakable sin of having struck a righteous blow

in the interest of women. And day by day, as months and years went

on, Herminia felt she was living down the disgrace of having obeyed

an enlightened conscience. She even found friends. Dear old Miss

Smith-Waters used to creep round by night, like Nicodemus--

respectability would not have allowed her to perform that Christian

act in open daylight,--and sit for an hour or two with her dear

misguided Herminia. Miss Smith-Waters prayed nightly for

Herminia's "conversion," yet not without an uncomfortable

suspicion, after all, that Herminia had very little indeed to be

"converted" from. Other people also got to know her by degrees; an

editor's wife; a kind literary hostess; some socialistic ladies who

liked to be "advanced;" a friendly family or two of the Bohemian

literary or artistic pattern. Among them Herminia learned to be as

happy in time as she could ever again be, now she had lost her

Alan. She was Mrs. Barton to them all; that lie she found it

practically impossible to fight against. Even the Bohemians

refused to let their children ask after Miss Barton's baby.




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