That's not fair! That shouldn't be allowed. Isn't there a way to stop
it?' That from a thirteen-year-old! It's one of those man-made abuses
that if we women ever get the vote we'll go after! Don't answer me on
this play now, Mr. Visigoth. Take it to your hotel. Read it over again.
Talk it over with your brother when he comes next week. How's that? No
snap judgment."
"Good. The play is on the docket for the evening. Now let us get the
taste of the underworld out of our mouths. How would the Claremont
appeal now?"
"I'd rather not."
"Well, I suppose that amounts to my _conge?_"
She smiled with her brows arched.
"It is after eleven."
He was incessantly feeling for his cigarette case and then with a
certain unease refraining.
"You may," she said, "one, before you go."
He held the case to her. She took one gingerly, accepting the light more
gingerly.
"I don't like them," she said, exhaling with the violence of the
unaccustomed.
"Then whyfore?"
"Because it is a stupid convention which says that a man may and a woman
may not. Why should it be a matter of course for you and, in most cases,
a matter of comment and even vulgarity for me?"
"Usage.
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