Page:Ann Veronica, a modern love story.djvu/50

 "Every one hasn't the Gift. Even there a woman never gets a fair chance.  Men are against her.  Whatever she does is minimized.  All the best novels have been written by women, and yet see how men sneer at the lady novelist still!  There's only one way to get on for a woman, and that is to please men.  That is what they think we are for!"

"We're beasts," said Teddy. "Beasts!"

But Miss Miniver took no notice of his admission.

"Of course," said Miss Miniver—she went on in a regularly undulating voice—"we do please men. We have that gift.  We can see round them and behind them and through them, and most of us use that knowledge, in the silent way we have, for our great ends. Not all of us, but some of us.  Too many.  I wonder what men would say if we threw the mask aside—if we really told them what We thought of them, really showed them what We were." A flush of excitement crept into her cheeks.

"Maternity," she said, "has been our undoing."

From that she opened out into a long, confused emphatic discourse on the position of women, full of wonderful statements, while Constance worked at her stencilling and Ann Veronica and Hetty listened, and Teddy contributed sympathetic noises and consumed cheap cigarettes. As she talked she made weak little gestures with her hands, and she thrust her face forward from her bent shoulders; and she peered sometimes at Ann Veronica and sometimes at a photograph of the Axenstrasse, near Fluelen, that hung upon the wall. Ann Veronica watched her face, vaguely sympathizing with her, vaguely disliking her physical insufficiency and her