Page:Garman and Worse.djvu/105

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Garman and Worse.
103

parison a very favourable one, holding up their countrywomen as veritable heroines; and as both Richard Garman and Delphin were far too gallant to dispute their theory, so the other two had full enjoyment of their triumph.

Jacob Worse now got up and joined the group. He had not been able to help partly overhearing the conversation, and ruffled as he was by Rachel's accusations, he could no longer keep silence. The Consul smiled as he joined the others, and said in a low tone, "I will keep my eye upon you, and if it gets too hot, will come to your assistance."

From the moment Jacob Worse began to take part in the conversation, the attaché felt that the reins were slipping out of his hands. Worse went at it hammer and tongs; not that he raised his voice, or used unbecoming expressions, but his views were so subversive and so original, that the others were forthwith reduced to silence. At the first onset he brushed aside all the nonsense about Norwegian women, and that sort of thing, and went on boldly to consider the position of woman generally with regard to man. The magistrate asked him superciliously if he meant them to understand that he was in favour of emancipation; and when Worse answered that he was, the magistrate asked him with a smile how he thought he would be treated by an "emancipated wife." Worse, however, maintained that it was not a question how a man was treated, but what the relation really was which existed between the two. The time must be drawing to a close when the sole consideration was,