Page:Ann Veronica, a modern love story.djvu/49

 "Thousands of women have married merely for freedom," said Miss Miniver. "Thousands! Ugh!  And found it a worse slavery."

"I suppose," said Constance, stencilling away at bright pink petals, "it's our lot. But it's very beastly."

"What's our lot?" asked her sister.

"Slavery! Downtroddenness!  When I think of it I feel all over boot marks—men's boots.  We hide it bravely, but so it is. Damn!  I've splashed."

Miss Miniver's manner became impressive. She addressed Ann Veronica with an air of conveying great open secrets to her. "As things are at present," she said, "it is true. We live under man-made institutions, and that is what they amount to.  Every girl in the world practically, except a few of us who teach or type-write, and then we're underpaid and sweated—it's dreadful to think how we are sweated!" She had lost her generalization, whatever it was. She hung for a moment, and then went on, conclusively, "Until we have the vote that is how things will be."

"I'm all for the vote," said Teddy.

"I suppose a girl must be underpaid and sweated," said Ann Veronica. "I suppose there's no way of getting a decent income—independently."

"Women have practically no economic freedom," said Miss Miniver, "because they have no political freedom. Men have seen to that. The one profession, the one decent profession, I mean, for a woman—except the stage—is teaching, and there we trample on one another. Everywhere else—the law, medicine, the Stock Exchange—prejudice bars us."

"There's art," said Ann Veronica, "and writing."