"They must have felt pretty sick," said the girl, "when they waked up the next morning--those Suffragettes."
"I don"t waste any sympathy on _them_. I"m thinking of the penalty _all_ women have to pay because two or three hysterical----"
"Still, I think I"m sorry for them," the girl persisted. "It must be dreadful to find you"ve done such a lot of harm to the thing you care most about in the world."
"Do you picture the Suffragettes sitting in sack-cloth?" said Vida, speaking at last.
"Well, they can"t help realizing _now_ what they"ve done."
"Isn"t it just possible they realize they"ve waked up interest in the Woman Question so that it"s advertised in every paper, and discussed under every roof, from Land"s End to John-o"-Groats? Don"t you think _they_ know there"s been more said and written about it in these days since the scene than in the ten years before it!"
"You aren"t saying you think it was a good way to get what they wanted!"
exclaimed Mrs. Freddy.
"I"m only pointing out that it seems not such a bad way to get it known they _do_ want something, and--"want it bad,"" Vida added, smiling.
Jean drew her low chair almost in front of the lady who had so wounded her sensibilities a little while before with that charge of popularity-hunting.
"Mrs. Tunbridge says before that horrid scene everything was favourable at last," the girl hazarded.
"Yes," said Mrs. Freddy, "we never had so many friends in the House before----"
""Friends,"" echoed the other woman, with a faint smile.
"Why do you say it like that?"
"Because I was thinking of a funny story--(he _said_ it was funny)--a Liberal Whip told me the other day. A Radical member went out of the House after his speech in favour of the Women"s Bill, and as he came back half an hour later he heard some members talking in the lobby about the astonishing number who were going to vote for the measure. And the Friend of Woman dropped his jaw and clutched the man next him. "My G.o.d!"
he said, "you don"t mean they"re going to _give_ it to them!""
"Sh! Here is Ronald." Mrs. Freddy"s tact brought her smiling to her feet as the figure of her brother-in-law appeared in the doorway. But she turned her back on him and affected absorption in the tableau presented by Jean leaning forward, elbow on knee, chin in hand, gazing steadily in Vida Levering"s face.
"I don"t want to interrupt you two," said the hostess, "but I think you must look at the pictures."
"Oh, yes, I brought them specially"--Lord Borrodaile deflected his course in order to take up from the table two squares of cardboard tied face to face with tape.
"Bless the man!" Mrs. Freddy contemplated him with smiling affectation of scorn. "I mean the new photographs of the children. He"s thinking of some reproductions Herbert Tunbridge got while he was abroad--pictures of things somebody"s unearthed in Sicily or Cyprus."
"Crete, my dear." He turned his back on the fond mother and Jean who was already oh-ing with appreciation at the first of a pile of little Saras and Cecils. When he came back to his corner of the sofa he made no motion to undo his packet, but "Now then!" he said, as he often did on sitting down beside Vida Levering--as though they had been interrupted on the verge of coming to an agreement about something.
She, with an instinct of returning the ball, usually tossed at him some sc.r.a.p of news or a jest, or some small social judgment. This time when he uttered his "Now then," with that antic.i.p.atory air, she answered instantly--"Yes; something rather odd has been happening. I"ve been seeing beyond my usual range."
"Really!" He smiled at her with a mixture of patronage and affection.
"And did you find there was "something new under the sun" after all?"
"Well, perhaps not so new, though it seemed new to me. But something differently looked at. Why do we pretend that all conversion is to some religious dogma--why not to a view of life?"
"Bless my soul! I begin to feel nervous."
"Do you remember once telling me that I had a thing that was rare in my s.e.x--a sense of humour?"
"I remember often thinking it," he said handsomely.
"It wasn"t the first time I"d heard that. And it was one of the compliments I liked best."
"We all do. It means we have a sense of proportion--the mental suppleness that is capable of the ironic view; an eye that can look right as well as left."
She nodded. "When you wrote to me once, "My dear Ironist," I--yes--I felt rather superior. I"m conscious now that it"s been a piece of hidden, intellectual pride with me that I could smile at most things."
"Well, do you mean to forswear pride? For you can"t live without smiling."
"I"ve seen something to-day that I don"t feel I want to smile at. And yet to you it"s the most ludicrous spectacle in London."
"This is all very mysterious." He turned his long, whimsical face on one side as he settled himself more comfortably against the cushion.
"You heard why I was late?" she said.
"I took the liberty of doubting the reason you gave!"
"You mustn"t. It wasn"t even my first offence."
"You must find time hang very heavy on your hands."
"On the contrary. I"ve never known the time to go so fast. Oh, heaps of people would do what I have, if they only knew how queer and interesting it is, and how already the outer aspect of the thing is changing. At the first meetings very few women of any cla.s.s. Now there are dozens--scores. Soon there"ll be hundreds. There were three thousand people in the park this afternoon, so a policeman told me, but hardly any of the cla.s.s that what d.i.c.k Farnborough calls "runs England.""
"I suppose not."
"You don"t even know yet you"ll have to deal with all that pa.s.sionate feeling, all that fixed determination to bring about a vast, far-reaching change!--a change so great----"
"That it would knock civilized society into a c.o.c.ked hat."
"I wonder."
"You _wonder_?"
"I wonder if you oughtn"t to be rea.s.sured by the--bigness of the thing.
It isn"t only these women in Hyde Park. They have a Feministe Movement in France. They say there"s a Frauenbewegung in Germany. From Finland to Italy----"
"Oh, yes, strikes and uprisings. It"s an uneasy Age."
"People in India wanting a greater share in the government----"
"Mad as the Persians----" he smiled--"fancy _Persians_ clamouring for a representative chamber! It"s a sort of epidemic."
"The Egyptians, too, restless under "benefits." And now everywhere, as if by some great concerted movement--the Women!"
"Yes, yes; there"s plenty of regrettable restlessness up and down the world, a sort of wave of revolt against the const.i.tuted authorities. If it goes too far--nothing for us but a military despotism!"
She shook her head with a look of such serene conviction that he persisted, "I"d be sorry if we came to it--but if this spirit grows, this rebellion against all forms of control----"