Chapter 13 - Page 2

language. So she got on with editors. Who could resist, indeed,
the pathetic charm of that girlish figure, simply clad in
unobtrusive black, and sanctified in every feature of the shrinking
face by the beauty of sorrow? Not the men who stand at the head of
the one English profession which more than all others has escaped
the leprous taint of that national moral blight that calls itself
"respectability."

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