The Woman Who Did | Page 6

her for a genuine laugh of
innocent amusement. "Oh yes," she said, merrily; "that's what I always answer to all
possible objectors to my ways and ideas. I reply with dignity, 'I was brought up in the
family of a clergyman of the Church of England.'"
"And what does the Dean say to your views?" Alan interposed doubtfully.
Herminia laughed again. If her eyes were profound, two dimples saved her. "I thought
you were with us," she answered with a twinkle; "now, I begin to doubt it. You don't
expect a man of twenty-two to be governed in all things, especially in the formation of
his abstract ideas, by his father's opinions. Why then a woman?"
"Why, indeed?" Alan answered. "There I quite agree with you. I was thinking not so
much of what is right and reasonable as of what is practical and usual. For most women,
of course, are--well, more or less dependent upon their fathers."
"But I am not," Herminia answered, with a faint suspicion of just pride in the
undercurrent of her tone. "That's in part why I went away so soon from Girton. I felt that
if women are ever to be free, they must first of all be independent. It is the dependence of
women that has allowed men to make laws for them, socially and ethically. So I wouldn't
stop at Girton, partly because I felt the life was one-sided,--our girls thought and talked of
nothing else on earth except Herodotus, trigonometry, and the higher culture,-- but partly
also because I wouldn't be dependent on any man, not even my own father. It left me
freer to act and think as I would. So I threw Girton overboard, and came up to live in
London."
"I see," Alan replied. "You wouldn't let your schooling interfere with your education.
And now you support yourself?" he went on quite frankly.
Herminia nodded assent.
"Yes, I support myself," she answered; "in part by teaching at a high school for girls, and
in part by doing a little hack-work for newspapers."
"Then you're just down here for your holidays, I suppose?" Alan put in, leaning forward.
"Yes, just down here for my holidays. I've lodgings on the Holmwood, in such a dear old
thatched cottage; roses peep in at the porch, and birds sing on the bushes. After a term in
London, it's a delicious change for one."
"But are you alone?" Alan interposed again, still half hesitating.
Herminia smiled once more; his surprise amused her. "Yes, quite alone," she answered.
"But if you seem so astonished at that, I shall believe you and Mrs. Dewsbury have been

trying to take me in, and that you're not really with us. Why shouldn't a woman come
down alone to pretty lodgings in the country?"
"Why not, indeed?" Alan echoed in turn. "It's not at all that I disapprove, Miss Barton; on
the contrary, I admire it; it's only that one's surprised to find a woman, or for the matter of
that anybody, acting up to his or her convictions. That's what I've always felt; 'tis the
Nemesis of reason; if people begin by thinking rationally, the danger is that they may end
by acting rationally also."
Herminia laughed. "I'm afraid," she answered, "I've already reached that pass. You'll
never find me hesitate to do anything on earth, once I'm convinced it's right, merely
because other people think differently on the subject."
Alan looked at her and mused. She was tall and stately, but her figure was well developed,
and her form softly moulded. He admired her immensely. How incongruous an outcome
from a clerical family! "It's curious," he said, gazing hard at her, "that you should be a
dean's daughter."
"On the contrary," Herminia answered, with perfect frankness, "I regard myself as a
living proof of the doctrine of heredity."
"How so?" Alan inquired.
"Well, my father was a Senior Wrangler," Herminia replied, blushing faintly; "and I
suppose that implies a certain moderate development of the logical faculties. In HIS
generation, people didn't apply the logical faculties to the grounds of belief; they took
those for granted; but within his own limits, my father is still an acute reasoner. And then
he had always the ethical and social interests. Those two things--a love of logic, and a
love of right--are the forces that tend to make us what we call religious. Worldly people
don't care for fundamental questions of the universe at all; they accept passively whatever
is told them; they think they think, and believe they believe it. But people with an interest
in fundamental truth inquire for themselves into the constitution of the cosmos; if they are
convinced one way, they become what we call theologians; if they are convinced the
other way, they become what we