Yes, derelict; and
what was worse, derelict not in the sense of desuetude of powers
or of powers outworn, but with the suggestion of never having had
any powers, of having been always the mere vessels of another's
powers--some man's; and now, with that power withdrawn--the man,
whether father, brother, lover or husband, gone--derelict as a
ship, abandoned of crew, rudderless and dismasted, is derelict; as
an obscure habitation, cold of hearth, crazy of walls, abandoned
to decay, is derelict. She summed them all up as having arrived at
what they were precisely because in their earlier years they had
been what in her childhood she had supposed women to be: inferior
creatures at the disposal and for the benefit and service of men.
What a warning never to be that! There they were--manless. And
therefore derelict. And because derelict for such a reason, therefore
testimony to a social condition that was abominable, and because
seen to be abominable never, never herself should enfold. Never!
Manless. Husbandless. There they were, the straggling mob of
them,--deserted by husbands, semi-detached from husbands, relict
of husbands fallen out with a stitch in the side in the race for
husbands. Urh!
She was very young, Rosalie.
"Despised and rejected of men," she said to Miss Salmon, holding
forth in their bedroom on her subject. "That's what I call them.
Despised and rejected of men. Oh, don't hum louder than ever.
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