Page:Her Roman Lover (Frothingham, 1911).djvu/58

 sideways. “Pooh!” he said, and it seemed to her that there was a dancing madness of gayety in his eyes; “forgive me if I say, ‘Pooh!’ to any words of yours,” he added, “but when you talk so of a man’s duty, what else can I reply?”

“I do not understand you,” said Anne. “Do you not recognize the duty of man to work in some way for other men?”

“I certainly do not if he prefers to do nothing,” he answered with decision and evident sincerity.

Anne considered the remark for a while in silence as she walked beside him, and was surprised to find that it did not displease her more. She even found something of charm in the audacity of his claim to individual freedom of action.

“If it is the duty of man to work, what becomes of women?”

“In my city many women work also.”

“And at what, may I ask, do they work?”

“At such things as Civil Service Reform, pure-food regulations, and endless charities.”

Signor Curatulo paused in his walk and looked at the American girl with evident stupefaction.

“Surely,” he said, “it is only the plain and the unattractive women who do such work.”

“No, indeed,” she answered. “Some of the leaders in these movements are beautiful and charming