"Thanks, awfully!"
"And we"ll "elp you if you let us," she said.
""Elp us? You tyke the bread out of our mouths."
"Now you"re goin" to begin about us blackleggin" the men! _W"y_ does any woman tyke less wyges than a man for the same work? Only because we can"t get anything better. That"s part the reason w"y we"re yere to-d"y.
Do you reely think," she reasoned with them as man to man; "do you think, now, we tyke those low wyges because we got a likin" fur low wyges? No. We"re just like you. We want as much as ever we can get."
""Ear! "ear!"
"We got a gryte deal to do with our wyges, we women has. We got the children to think about. And w"en we get our rights, a woman"s flesh and blood won"t be so much cheaper than a man"s that employers can get rich on keepin" you out o" work and sweatin" us. If you men only could see it, we got the syme cause, and if you "elped us you"d be "elpin"
yerselves."
"Rot!"
"True as gospel!" some one said.
"Drivel!"
As she retired against the banner with the others, there was some applause.
"Well, now," said a man patronizingly, "that wusn"t so bad--fur a woman."
"N--naw. Not fur a woman."
Jean had been standing on tip-toe making signals. Ah, at last Geoffrey saw her! But why was he looking so grave?
"No policeman?" Lady John asked.
"Not on that side. They seem to have surrounded the storm centre, which is just in front of the place you"ve rather unwisely chosen." Indeed it was possible to see, further on, half a dozen helmets among the hats.
What was happening on the plinth seemed to have a lessened interest for Jean Dunbarton. She kept glancing sideways up under the cap brim at the eyes of the man at her side.
Lady John on the other hand was losing nothing. "Is _she_ one of them?
That little thing?"
"I--I suppose so," answered Stonor, doubtfully, though the chairman, with a cheerful air of relief, had introduced Miss Ernestine Blunt to the accompaniment of cheers and a general moving closer to the monument.
Lady John, after studying Ernestine an instant through her gla.s.s, turned to a dingy person next her, who was smoking a short pipe.
"Among those women up there," said Lady John, "can you tell me, my man, which are the ones that a--that make the disturbances?"
The man removed his pipe and spat carefully between his feet. Then with deliberation he said--
"The one that"s doing the talking now--she"s the disturbingest o" the lot."
"Not that nice little----"
"Don"t you be took in, mum;" and he resumed the consolatory pipe.
"What is it, Geoffrey? Have I done anything?" Jean said very low.
"Why didn"t you stay where I left you?" he answered, without looking at her.
"I couldn"t hear. I couldn"t even see. Please don"t look like that.
Forgive me," she pleaded, covertly seeking his hand.
His set face softened. "It frightened me when I didn"t see you where I left you."
She smiled, with recovered spirits. She could attend now to the thing she had come to see.
"I"m sorry you missed the inspired charwoman. It"s rather upsetting to think--do you suppose any of our servants have--views?"
Stonor laughed. "Oh, no! Our servants are all too superior." He moved forward and touched a policeman on the shoulder. What was said was not audible--the policeman at first shook his head, then suddenly he turned round, looked sharply into the gentleman"s face, and his whole manner changed. Obliging, genial, almost obsequious. "Oh, he"s recognized Geoffrey!" Jean said to her aunt. "They _have_ to do what a member tells them! They"ll stop the traffic any time to let Geoffrey go by!" she exulted.
Stonor beckoned to his ladies. The policeman was forging a way in which they followed.
"This will do," Stonor said at last, and he whispered again to the policeman. The man replied, grinning. "Oh, really," Stonor smiled, too.
"This is the redoubtable Miss Ernestine Blunt," he explained over his shoulder, and he drew back so that Jean could pa.s.s, and standing so, directly in front of him, she could be protected right and left, if need were, by a barrier made of his arms.
"Now can you see?" he asked.
She looked round and nodded. Her face was without cloud again. She leaned lightly against his arm.
Miss Ernestine had meanwhile been catapulting into election issues with all the fervour of a hot-gospeller.
"What outrageous things she says about important people--people she ought to respect and be rather afraid of," objected Jean, rather scandalized.
"Impudent little baggage!" said Stonor.
Reasons, a plenty, the baggage had why the Party which had so recently refused to enfranchise women should not be returned to power.
"You"re in too big a hurry," some one shouted. "All the Liberals want is a little time."
"Time! You seem not to know that the first pet.i.tion in favour of giving us the Franchise was signed in 1866."
"How do _you_ know?"
She paused a moment, taken off her guard by the suddenness of the attack.
"_You_ wasn"t there!"
"That was the trouble. Haw! Haw!"
"That pet.i.tion," she said, "was presented forty years ago."
"Give "er a "reain" now she _"as_ got out of "er crydle."