Accustomed to the curt word and to servile obedience they
had no understanding for a woman who asserted herself in positive terms
of personality. To them a "he-woman" who "wore pants" and admitted no
sex inferiority was at best a "hussy without shame." If such a woman
chanced also to be beautiful beyond comparison with her less favored
sisters, the conclusion was inescapable. They could read in her
self-claimed emancipation only the wildness of a filly turned out to
pasture without halter or hobble; the wildness of one who scorns
respectability; for primitive morality is pathetically narrow. It may
sing piously about the pyre of a burning witch, but it can hardly grasp
the pagan chastity of a Diana.
And it was a Diana both chaste and vital who stood in this wide-flung
door. Behind her far radiant background was the full light of a young
day. For an instant the scowl of storm-laden skies broke into a smile
of sunlight as though she had brought the brightness with her. But she
stood poised in an attitude of arrested action--halted by the curb of
anxiety.
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