She saw Doctor McCall idly leaning over the foot-bridge of the creek while he smoked.  Passion and brilliancy unknown to them before came into her dark eyes:  she stretched out her hands as though she would have dragged him to her:  “Must I give him up because of this wife whom he long ago cast off?”

If she tempted him to marry her?  She knew what name her old church, her old friends, even her father, who was still living, would apply to her.  Some of these people with whom she had lately cast in her lot had different views on the subject of marriage.  Hitherto, Maria had kept clear of them.  “The white wings of her Thought,” she had said, “should not be soiled by venturing near impurity.”  Now she remembered their arguments against marriage as profound and convincing.

“I could not suggest to him myself this way of escape,” she thought, the red dying her face and neck.  “I could not.”  But there was to be a meeting that very evening of the “Inner Light Club,” in which Maria was a M.H.G. (Most Honorable Guide), and the subject for discussion would be, “Shall marriage in the Advanced Consolidated Republic be for life or for a term of years?” The profoundest thinkers in the society would bring to this vital question all their strength and knowledge, and, as they had all made up their minds beforehand against bondage and babies, the verdict was likely to be unanimous.

She would contrive that McCall should be one of the audience:  the wisdom and truth of the arguments would shine in like a great light on his life, and he would start up a new man, throwing aside this heaviest yoke of social slavery.  She would be there ("with a black lace mantilla and veil—­so much better than a bonnet,” she breathlessly resolved), and at the sight of her he would feel the divine force of true love bringing them together, and claim her as his own.

The modern Cleopatra fights upon the rostrum, in lieu of “sixty sail,” and uses as weapons newspaper and club, instead of purple robe and “cloyless sauce of epicurean cook,” but the guerdon of the battle is none the less Mark Antony.

At sundown that evening Doctor McCall was piloted by little Herr Bluhm to his office; the Herr, according to his wont, sternly solemn, McCall disposed to be hilarious, as suited the pleasant temperature of the evening.

“Club, eh?  Inner Light?  Oh yes, I’ve no objections.  One picks up good ideas here, there, anywhere.  Meets in your office?”

“Yes—­a shabby, vulgar place to the outer eye, but so many noble souls have there struggled out of darkness into light, such mighty Truths have been born there which will guide the age, that to me it is the very Holy Ground of Ideas.”

“So?” McCall looked at the little man out of the corner of his eye, and nodded gravely.

“It is a Woman’s Club, though men take part in it.  But we have such faith in the superior integrity and purity of woman’s mind when brought to bear on great but hackneyed questions that we willingly stand back until she has given her verdict.  The magnet, sir, pointing out with inexplicable intelligence the true path to humanity.”