Dropping McGregor's arm Edith ran across the room and stood before Margaret. “How do you know you are more beautiful or can bear more beautiful children?” she demanded. “What do you mean by beauty anyway? I deny your beauty.” She turned to McGregor. “Look,” she cried, “she does not stand the test.”
Pride swept over the woman that had come to life within the body of the little milliner. With calm eyes she stared at the people in the room and when she looked again toward Margaret there was a challenge in her voice.
“Beauty has to endure,” she said swiftly. “It has to be daring. It has to outlive long years of life and many defeats.” A hard look came into her eyes as she challenged the daughter of wealth. “I had the courage to be defeated and I have the courage to take what I want,” she said. “Have you that courage? If you have take this man. You want him and so do I. Take his arm and walk away with him. Do it now, here before my eyes.”
Margaret shook her head. Her body trembled and her eyes looked wildly about. She turned to David Ormsby. “I did not know that life could be like this,” she said. “Why didn't you tell me? She is right. I am afraid.”
A light came into McGregor's eyes and he turned quickly about. “I see,” he said, looking sharply at Edith, “you have also your purpose.” Turning again he looked into the eyes of David.
“There is something to be decided here. It is perhaps the supreme test of a man's life. One struggles to keep a thought in mind, to be impersonal, to see that life has a purpose outside his own purpose. You have perhaps made that struggle. You see I'm making it now. I'm going to take Edith and go back to work.”
At the door McGregor stopped and put out his hand to David who took it and looked at the big lawyer respectfully.
“I'm glad to see you go,” said the ploughmaker briefly.
“I'm glad to be going,” said McGregor, understanding that there was nothing but relief and honest antagonism in the voice and in the mind of David Ormsby.
The Marching Men Movement was never a thing to intellectualise. For years McGregor tried to get it under way by talking. He did not succeed. The rhythm and swing that was at the heart of the movement hung fire. The man passed through long periods of depression and had to drive himself forward. And then after the scene with Margaret and Edith in the Ormsby house came action.