"But _we_ couldn't." "No, you couldn't; it's the ribbon of superiority in your buttonhole.
I know several women who manage to live without men to open doors for them, and I think I could bear to let a man pass before me now and then, or wear his hat in an office where I happened to be; and I could get my own ice at a dance, I think, possibly with even less fuss and scramble than I've sometimes observed in the young men who have done it for me.
But you know you would never let us do things for ourselves, no matter what legal equality might be declared, even when we get representation for our taxation.

You will never be able to deny yourselves giving us our 'privilege.' I hate being waited on.

I'd rather do things for myself." She was so earnest in her satire, so full of scorn and so serious in her meaning, and there was such a contrast between what she said and her person; she looked so preeminently the pretty marquise, all silks and softness, the little exquisite, so essentially to be waited on and helped, to have cloaks thrown over the dampness for her to tread upon, to be run about for--he could see half a dozen youths rushing about for her ices, for her carriage, for her chaperone, for her wrap, at dances--that to save his life he could not repress a chuckle.

He managed to make it inaudible, however; and it was as well that he did.
"I understand your love of newspaper work," she went on, less vehemently, but not less earnestly.

"I have always wanted to do it myself, wanted to immensely.