Part 1

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She groaned aloud and bowed her forehead to her knees. She floundered deep. She wanted to kiss his feet. His feet would have the firm texture of his hands.

Then suddenly her spirit rose in revolt. "I will not have this slavery," she said. "I will not have this slavery."

She shook her fist ceilingward. "Do you hear!" she said "whatever you are, wherever you are! I will not be slave to the thought of any man, slave to the customs of any time. Confound this slavery of sex! I am a man! I will get this under if I am killed in doing it!"

She scowled into the cold blacknesses about her.

"Manning," she said, and contemplated a figure of inaggressive persistence. "No!" Her thoughts had turned in a new direction.

"It doesn't matter," she said, after a long interval, "if they are absurd. They mean something. They mean everything that women can mean--except submission. The vote is only the beginning, the necessary beginning. If we do not begin--"

She had come to a resolution. Abruptly she got out of bed, smoothed her sheet and straightened her pillow and lay down, and fell almost instantly asleep.