self-willed dominant boy, who now grew larger and more masculine in
stature under the instance of each successive light. Stephen knew
the others fairly well through and through. The usual mixture of
good and evil, of strength and weakness, of purpose and vacillation,
was quite within the scope of her own feeling and of her observation.
But this man was something of a problem to her; and, as such, had a
prominence in her thoughts quite beyond his own worthiness.

In movement of some form is life; and even ideas grow when the pulses
beat and thought quickens. Stephen had long had in her mind the idea
of sexual equality. For a long time, in deference to her aunt's
feelings, she had not spoken of it; for the old lady winced in
general under any suggestion of a breach of convention. But though
her outward expression being thus curbed had helped to suppress or
minimise the opportunities of inward thought, the idea had never left
her. Now, when sex was, consciously or unconsciously, a dominating
factor in her thoughts, the dormant idea woke to new life. She had
held that if men and women were equal the woman should have equal
rights and opportunities as the man. It had been, she believed, an
absurd conventional rule that such a thing as a proposal of marriage
should be entirely the prerogative of man.

And then came to her, as it ever does to woman, opportunity.
Opportunity, the cruelest, most remorseless, most unsparing, subtlest
foe that womanhood has. Here was an opportunity for her to test her
own theory; to prove to herself, and others, that she was right.
They--'they' being the impersonal opponents of, or unbelievers in,
her theory--would see that a woman could propose as well as a man;
and that the result would be good.