Bok could not and would not accept these conclusions.It seemed to him incredible that women would go so far as this in the question of personal adornment.He caused the increased sales to be traced from wholesaler to retailer, and from retailer to customer, and was amazed at the character and standing of the latter.He had a number of those buyers who lived in adjacent cities, privately approached and interviewed, and ascertained that, save in two instances, they were all his readers, had seen the gruesome pictures he had presented, and then had deliberately purchased the coveted aigrette.
Personally again he sought the most intelligent of his woman-friends, talked with scores of others, and found himself facing the same trait in feminine nature which he had encountered in his advocacy of American fashions.But this time it seemed to Bok that the facts he had presented went so much deeper.
"It will be hard for you to believe," said one of his most trusted woman-friends."I grant your arguments: there is no gainsaying them.But you are fighting the same thing again that you do not understand: the feminine nature that craves outer adornment will secure it at any cost, even at the cost of suffering.""Yes," argued Bok."But if there is one thing above everything else that we believe a woman feels and understands, it is the mother-instinct.Do you mean to tell me that it means nothing to her that these birds are killed in their period of motherhood, and that a whole nest of starving baby-birds is the price of every aigrette?""I won't say that this does not weigh with a woman.It does, naturally.
But when it comes to her possession of an ornament of beauty, as beautiful as the aigrette, it weighs with her, but it doesn't tip the scale against her possession of it.I am sorry to have to say this to you, but it is a fact.A woman will regret that the mother-bird must be tortured and her babies starve, but she will have the aigrette.She simply trains herself to forget the origin.
"Take my own case.You will doubtless be shocked when I tell you that Iwas perfectly aware of the conditions under which the aigrette is obtained before you began your exposure of the method.But did it prevent my purchase of one? Not at all.Why? Because I am a woman: Irealize that no head ornament will set off my hair so well as an aigrette.Say I am cruel if you like.I wish the heron-mother didn't have to be killed or the babies starve, but, Mr.Bok, I must have my beautiful aigrette!"Bok was frankly astounded: he had certainly probed deep this time into the feminine nature.With every desire and instinct to disbelieve the facts, the deeper his inquiries went, the stronger the evidence rolled up: there was no gainsaying it; no sense in a further disbelief of it.
But Bok was determined that this time he would not fail.His sense of justice and protection to the mother-bird and her young was now fully aroused.He resolved that he would, by compulsion, bring about what he had failed to do by persuasion.He would make it impossible for women to be untrue to their most sacred instinct.He sought legal talent, had a bill drawn up making it a misdemeanor to import, sell, purchase, or wear an aigrette.Armed with this measure, and the photographs and articles which he had published, he sought and obtained the interest and promise of support of the most influential legislators in several States.He felt a sense of pride in his own sex that he had no trouble in winning the immediate interest of every legislator with whom he talked.
