Julia found this cablegram on her table when she returned on the following evening from the House of Commons. Its extravagance relaxed the angry tension of her mind, and she could imagine no future moment in which she would be in a more fitting mood to answer it. She removed her battered hat, washed the dirt and blood from her hands and face, and her pen was soon flying over large sheets of the W. S. P. U.

I

The great amphitheatre of the Albert Hall was filled from arena to dome: some ten thousand women and three hundred men, exclusive of police. Slim young women in the white uniform of stewards and decorated with the badges of their unions stood at the back of the gangways. On the platform, against flowers and banners, sat the officials of the Woman’s Social and Political Union and of the several unions it had inspired. Of the most important of these, Julia France had been elected president eighteen months before, and to-night sat at the right of Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, who occupied the chair in the absence of Mrs. Pankhurst.

The great rally had a fourfold purpose: to celebrate the victory of the Militants in the general election, during which they had fought the Liberals in forty constituencies; their energy, cleverness, and resource being not the least of the factors which had transferred eighteen seats to the Conservatives (thus throwing the Government upon the Labor and Irish vote for support); to protest once more against the inhuman treatment of the hunger strikers in Holloway gaol; to add to the £100,000 fund; and to listen to Mrs. France’s account of her three months’ lecture tour in the United States.

When Julia had risen to speak, she had been greeted by a magnificent demonstration. Every woman in the audience had sprung to her feet, cheered, and waved her banner for five minutes. This enthusiasm was not inspired by Julia’s notable tour only, nor to the money she had brought back with her, but to her four years’ record of steadfast and valuable work in the Militant cause, the large number of recruits she had brought in by her personal efforts, the many Liberal candidates she had helped to defeat at by-elections, her religious devotion to a work for which nothing in her previous life would seem to have prepared her, and above all, to the great gift for leadership she had displayed during the last year and a half. For her indomitable courage, her indifference to personal comfort, and to bodily suffering when maltreated by police, stewards, or hooligans, or endured in gaol, they had no applause; this was a mere matter of course. But in addition to her services, Julia was a favorite with all of them: she was picturesque without being sensational, a brilliant powerful persuasive speaker, and a lovely picture on the platform. Moreover, she possessed (and desperately clung to) the priceless gift of humor, and humor in suffragette ranks was rare. Mrs. Pankhurst and her daughters, great speakers as they were, had not a ray of it; and even Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, the most genial of women, fell under the spell of the world’s tragedy the moment she rose to speak.

To-night, Julia, knowing that most of the minds present were oppressed by the sufferings in Holloway, made the account of her American experiences as diverting as possible, although she finished with a passionate denunciation of the Government, and an appeal to her audience to proselytize unceasingly, until their numbers were irresistible.

When she sat down, Mrs. Lawrence, preparatory to making her appeal for funds, gave a graphic and terrible picture of the hunger strikers, who, forcibly fed through the nose and throat with surgical instruments of torture, were now having a dose of martyrdom that compared favorably with any in the records of the Inquisition. Julia, too well acquainted with the horrible details, glanced over the House and nodded to Ishbel Dark and Bridgit Maundrell, seated in a box. Ishbel was still the prettiest woman in any assembly she chose to grace, and her attire, as ever, looked like the petals of a flower. Bridgit, severely tailored, albeit in velvet, was sitting forward tensely, her eyes flashing at the iniquities of man. Julia noted with amusement that Maundrell was behind her, and listening with an expression no less indignant. Dark consistently refused to show himself at Suffrage rallies, although more sympathetic of late, but Maundrell was not only complaisant, but converted. To have lived with Bridgit for three years and failed to be impressed by that burning and immovable faith would have stamped him superman, and the next step was to surrender to a cause capable of making such an apostle. He already had made a number of speeches, in and out of the House, advocating the extension of the franchise to a limited number of women, and as he was a man of distinguished abilities, there was much rejoicing in Suffrage ranks. He had even permitted his wife to take part in the last great raid on the House, although, without her knowledge, he had circled near her, and diverted the attention of the police when she had been too eager for trouble. He had no intention of letting her go to gaol and ruin her health.

But the Westminster police avoided arresting women of Mrs. Maundrell’s position unless their official faces were slapped. For that matter they were growing more and more averse from arresting women at all, and had been heard to wish that the Parliamentarians would come out and do their own dirty work. The women had so far won their liking and respect that when the Government wanted them knocked about, they were forced to order up reserves from the slums. The Westminster officers formed woman-proof cordons about the Houses of Parliament, effectively protecting the men within, but repulsed their assailants good-naturedly, only making arrests when the women were inexorable. When Julia, determined upon arrest in one of the raids of 1909, made a technical assault upon a tall policeman’s chin, he had whispered: “Harder, Mrs. France. Give me a good crack on me cheek. That’ll be assault, as the Inspector’s looking this way, and I’ll have to arrest ye.”

The great number of Militants arrested, the injustice of their trials and sentences, the severity of their treatment in gaol, had succeeded as nothing else had done in arousing the women of Great Britain. Very nearly a million had declared themselves in favor of Suffrage, and many of these had joined one or other of the forty-one societies and unions.

Only the mean-spirited, the hopelessly old-fashioned, and the sex idolaters had failed to rally to their cause. Never in the history of England had there been such monster mass-meetings, such impressive parades, such a widespread upheaval. If these rebels had been Socialists, or any other body of men demanding concessions, they would have won their battle long since.

Mrs. Lawrence passed on to her favorite subject, the injustice of visiting the penalties of the law upon desperate girls for infanticide, while ignoring her partner in crime. Julia, whose mind had wandered to her own prison experiences, happily over before the hunger strike was organized, and the devices to which she had resorted before she had compelled arrest in spite of the duke’s vigilance, suddenly, without an instant’s transition, began to think vividly of Daniel Tay. She started and sat up straighter, drawing her brows together in perplexity. Her thought was very consecutive these days.

During their long but irregular correspondence—often conducted on his part by cable—she had thought of him exclusively while writing, or reading his characteristic letters, and then dismissed him from her mind. There was always a certain excitement in “talking” confidentially into a mind on the other side of the globe, and his epistles, however brief, were sympathetic. He had long since given up his attempt to turn her from her purpose; he recognized her as a force, and asserted that he was proud of her. She fancied that he no longer cared to meet her again, but found his own amusement in the novelty of the correspondence; and she too no longer experienced tremors at sight of his handwriting. But she was conscious of a bond, and welcomed an occasional vibration from the other end of the line.

And now she suddenly found herself thinking of him intensely. She peered out into that acre of faces. Could he be present? Hardly, as he had written but a few weeks ago that he was “up to his neck” in business and politics. The famous Graft Prosecution was sitting expectantly on the edge of its grave, dug by corrupting gold, the rallying of every dishonest business man in San Francisco to the standard of the scoundrels in politics, and a few mistakes of its own. Business, too, was “awful,” San Francisco’s luck not having turned since the morning of the earthquake. No, he could not be present, but she stirred uneasily, nevertheless. She was highly organized, and quick to respond to the concentration of another mind upon her own. Once more she searched that mass of faces, but they seemed to melt into one. She banished Tay from her mind. He returned promptly. She frowned, but gave it up and let her mind drift.

Mrs. Lawrence had made her usual stirring appeal for an addition to the growing fund, and the money was rolling in. The girl stewards were running back and forth, and Mrs. Lawrence was reading aloud the promise cards as they were handed up, while her husband made the additions on the score board. Some £5000 had been subscribed amidst continuous applause, when Julia forgot Tay and almost laughed aloud as she heard Mrs. Winstone’s name read out to the tune of £20. “Alas!” this convert had cried plaintively to Julia, a few days before. “What will you? Haven’t I always said that one secret of lookin’ young was to dress in the fashion of the moment, not have any silly style of your own? And you’ve got to keep your mind dressed up to date as well as your figger. I’m not goin’ to gaol and ruin what complexion I’ve got left, but I’ve taken a box at Albert Hall and I’m havin’ meetings in my drawin’-room. It’s a God-send to have a new fad, anyway. All the old ones were motheaten.”

Julia lost her breath. She felt her body cold and rigid, and all its blood flown to her face.

“Daniel Tay, £200,” read Mrs. Lawrence.

And the women cheered, as they always did when a man offered himself up for encouragement.

Julia stared at her hands and tried to close her lips! So! He was here! She was furious with herself for her agitation; she also cast a hasty glance over her costume. Ishbel and her maid attended to her wardrobe, keeping her admirably dressed; nothing was asked of her but to wear her clothes, and this she could always be relied upon to do with distinction. She had hardly been aware of the color or fashion of her gown until this moment of searching investigation, and was gratified to observe that it was of white chiffon cloth and gentian blue velvet; made with simplicity, but long of line, and moulded to her round slim young figure. She wore a long chain of blue tourmalines and moonstones, the colors of her Union, and presented by her American admirers. Her abundant flame-colored locks were braided about her head as in the days of Bosquith, little curls escaping on her brow and neck.

Her self-possession returned, and looking out, she deliberately smiled, a very hospitably sisterly smile. She believed that Tay would move, change his seat abruptly; but everybody was moving, and many were standing. To recognize him would be impossible unless he came directly up to the platform. She rather wondered that he did not, being an informal creature. Then she looked forward confidently to finding him at the stage door.

The meeting broke up, amidst renewed cheers and waving of flags. Tay was not at the stage door. After lingering for a few moments in conversation, she went round to the front entrance. But only the police stood there, a long stately and useless rank. They all saluted Julia, and one told her he had missed her. Finally she permitted him to put her into a cab, and drove to Clement’s Inn with her black brows in a straight line. She excogitated until the brilliant idea struggled out that Tay had intrusted his donation to some friend, who had recklessly unchained himself from his desk in that unhappy city of San Francisco.

II

When she had entered her flat she sat down at her desk and scowled more deeply still. She was angry not only at her past agitation but at her present disappointment. For seven years now, save for brief lapses, almost forgotten, she had been complete mistress of herself. During the last four she had so far sunk her personality into the great impersonal cause of her adoption that she had had no time to moon about herself after the fashion of idle women.

Work! Had that been the secret? How commonplace, and how expositive! Who, indeed, when speaking, planning, fighting, proselytizing, writing innumerable leaflets, newspaper and magazine articles, drilling recruits, attending thousands of meetings, to say nothing of organizing her own Union and fighting army, would find a moment’s time to cast a thought to man save as present enemy and future co-worker. Even when in gaol, from which she had been mysteriously released both times at the end of a week, she had deliberately slept when not writing articles in her head. In America she had not gone farther west than Chicago, but she suddenly realized that if the question of including California in the itinerary had arisen she should have felt something like panic, possibly the same superstitious fear that had assailed her at three pillar boxes four years earlier. Well, indeed, that Tay had sent his contribution. She had no desire to have her work interrupted, nor to go through any female throes. To know that she was still hospitable to them was bad enough. Switch him out! She took her typewriter from its case, haughtily refusing to sleep.

The telephone beside her rang. She put the receiver to her ear, wondering who dared interrupt her at night in times of peace. Although a truce with the Government was not formally declared until February 14th, the Militants were resting on the laurels won in the General Election.

A man’s voice answered her “Hello!”

“Who is it?”

“Guess!”

“I—I can’t.”

“Well, I hope my voice has changed some.”

“Oh—so you are here. How generous of you to give us those £200!”

“Generous nothing. You fired me up so with that speech that I came near subscribing my entire letter of credit, and then borrowing back enough to pay my hotel bill and get out.”

“Why didn’t you come up to the platform afterward, or wait for me in the lobby?”

“Frightened out of my wits. I’m never shy at the other end of the telephone, so thought I’d meet you this way first. If you’d made the usual female speech, I should have remained quite myself. But with all your wit and fire, you’re so finished, so polished—and you look that way, too. My teeth are still chattering. Somehow, in spite of everything, I suddenly realized that I’d always remembered you as the little princess on the tower.”

(“And I in the fatal young thirties!”) “Nonsense! I’ve merely worked hard these last four years. No one ever dreamed of being afraid of me. Of course you’ll call to-morrow?”

“I think I might summon up courage if you would infuse a little cordiality into your voice. You’ve thawed a bit, but not too much.”

“You took me so completely by surprise. I had just made up my mind that you had asked some friend to make that donation in your name.”

“Never should have thought of such a thing, although you could have had all I’ve got at any moment. What time may I call to-morrow?”

“When did you arrive?”

“This morning. Saw at once that you were going to speak, and thought I’d see what you were like before I ventured. What time may I call to-morrow morning?”

“Let me think—I’ve always a thousand things to attend to in the morning —”

“Please cut them out. You need a rest, anyhow. I’d like to call at eleven.”

“Well—why not? We might go to the National Gallery —”

“What! You’re not going to begin on that? Reminds me of Cherry and the torments of my youth. I’d like to talk to you for twelve hours on end, and take you out to lunch and dinner, but I’ll go to no morgues!”

“Oh, very well. It will be quite delightful. But as it will be what you call a strenuous day, perhaps I’d better go to bed now. Good night.”

“Good night, Militant Princess.”

When Julia hung up the receiver she was still smiling. Then, to show how completely mistress of herself she was, she went to bed and slept.

III

The next morning Julia looked dubiously about her little sitting-room. A workshop, truly. No hint here of the charming woman’s boudoir. It would have been impossible for Julia to live in tasteless surroundings, and the walls were covered with green burlap, the carpet was of the same shade, the chairs were of leather, the big desk was of old oak. But there was not a picture on the walls, not a bibelôt, only books, books everywhere; and in the corners piles of papers. She rang for the maid that took care both of her and the flat (her meals were brought in unless she went out for them), and ordered her to make the room as presentable as possible while she took the walk with which she began her day. It was raining, but no weather kept her indoors, and she walked rapidly to Kensington Park and back.

When she reëntered the flat she petrified the maid by ordering her to bring forth her new coats and skirts for inspection. There was a rough but handsome green tweed for heavy wear, the inevitable black cloth, and a more elaborate costume of electric blue cloth with a white velvet collar and fancy blouse, intended for the simple functions of her present life. She arrayed herself in the last without an instant’s hesitation, then after trying on the graceful little hat three times, decided that it would be more hospitable to receive an old friend in the hair he admired.

“Have I any tea-gowns?” she asked abruptly.

“Tea-gowns, mum?” Collins barely articulated. “No, mum. You’ve never had use for tea-gowns.”

“How odd, when I often come home tired.”

“I’ve never seen you really tired, mum.”

“Everybody is tired at times—and—and—I always wanted tea-gowns.”

“I’ll go at once to her ladyship’s—”

“Yes, do. No, go to the big French houses—I’ve given Lady Dark so much trouble. Buy me two, ready-made. A pale green one, and a white one with sapphire-blue ribbons—or cornflower blue. It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, mum.” And Collins went on her errand joyfully.

“Now what a fool I am,” thought Julia. But she did not recall the maid. She carried the forgotten typewriter into the next room and deposited it on the bed, then sat down and reflected that Swani Dambaba, her Hindu master, had often reminded her there was nothing like a short, but thorough, vacation from the mind’s accustomed travail, to recuperate the mental faculties and prepare them for still more arduous labors. She had thought of one thing only for four years. This, no doubt, was the opportunity her mind had impatiently awaited, for its Suffrage activities had lain down to sleep without a preliminary yawn. Her secretary had come and gone, mystified.

Promptly on the stroke of eleven she answered a sharp rap and extended both hands with a cold friendly brightness she could always adjust like a visor. Tay flung his hat on a chair and shook her hands for quite a minute. Obviously his diffidence was a thing of overnight, for it was not in evidence as he smiled down upon her with his keen clever eyes.

“By Jove!” he exclaimed, “but you look good to me. You haven’t changed a bit. To tell the truth, if business hadn’t forced me to come over here, I don’t believe I’d ever have come—was so afraid you’d be old and ugly —”

“Old and ugly!” cried Julia, indignantly. “When I’m only—” She paused abruptly. Tay knew that she was thirty-four, and she was willing that he should know, but, quite like any woman after twenty-eight, she couldn’t force the combination past her lips.

“I know, but you’ve worked like a man, and been in so many free fights. Batting cops over the head, sitting on roofs in the rain to devil politicians at the psychological moment, to say nothing of gaol, doesn’t improve women, as a rule. I was almost certain you would have lost your complexion—and your hair!”

“Well, I haven’t. Do sit down. Will you smoke?”

“Will you?”

“I never smoke in the morning.”

“No more do I. Don’t let my nerves get ahead of me.”

“It would be delightful to see you all again,” said Julia, amiably, as he took off his overcoat and made himself comfortable. Then she plunged into the safe subject of Mrs. Bode and her amusing experiences in London during the Spanish war, meanwhile examining him with cool smiling eyes, which appeared to dwell upon the cheerful memory of his sister. She was gratified to find him as well dressed and groomed, even to the crown of his sleek black head, as any man he might meet in Piccadilly, and confessed that she would have been intensely disappointed had his attire been as Western as his vocabulary. His accent was also agreeable, without nasal inflection, and although it lacked the cultivation of the best English voice, it was manly even over the telephone. He had grown several inches taller, although he had been a tall boy, and his figure was straight and well set up. Save for the keen depth of the black-gray eyes, and the accentuated squareness of chin and jaw, he had changed surprisingly little. Even as a boy he had held his head high; now he had the air of one accustomed to command a large number of men. His manner, while courteous and amiable, betrayed possibilities of impatience. She could quite appreciate what he had once written her, that he was “some pumpkins on the street.”

He looked steadily at her as they talked, and she detected an expression both defensive and wary at the back of his eyes, reflected in the slight smile on his firm, rather grim mouth. She guessed that he had no intention of falling in love with her again. Every once in a while, however, his eyes flashed with admiration, and then he looked quite boyish; his smile was spontaneous and delightful. But she suddenly realized that he would not be as easy to understand as she had thought.

“You might have sent me a photograph,” he said abruptly, tired of Cherry. “I have a large collection of libels, cut from weekly magazines, but —”

“How odd you never asked for one.”

“I guess I didn’t want the charming picture in my mind disturbed. I feared you might have grown to look masculine, at the least. It’s queer you haven’t, you know.”

“None of us looks masculine, although a good many look sexless, if you like. Don’t you want to come down to the offices and meet the big ones?”

“I—do—not.”

“I thought you were so interested—”

“As far as I am concerned the entire movement is concentrated in you. You may be the type, but I don’t believe it, and anyhow I don’t care.”

“Well, you saw some of them on the platform last night.”

“I saw no one but you. In fact I had an opera-glass trained on you throughout the whole show.”

“Oh! Did you? But you haven’t told me what brought you over.”

“We’re trying to open an important connection in London, and our representative cabled me to come over and help him. An American has to sit up nights to keep an Englishman from getting ahead of him, much as an Englishman has to sit up watching a Scot. This is the top of civilization, all right—and all that term implies. No wonder your women are ahead in their particular game.”

“But the American women are now almost as keen on Suffrage as we are.”

“Yes, but in their way, not yours. I’m for giving them the vote, for they’ll help us to clean up, and incidentally develop their minds. But your women are a century ahead—not that we’ll ever have such women. Thank God, we haven’t the men to breed them. You’re up against the hundred-per-cent male. That is enough to make women stronger than death. With us it’s more likely to be the other way.”

“You don’t look henpecked.”

“No more I am, nor ever shall be. Our women only think they do the tyrannizing. Give a woman her head in trifles, all the money she can whine or nag for, and she thinks she’s the whole show. That’s the way we manage ours. What they don’t know doesn’t hurt them.”

“I rather think that’s worse. We at least know what we are fighting.”

“Exactly. And it has made great fighters of you. None better in the history of the world. That shows how much cleverer the American man is than the Englishman. We lie low like Br’er Rabbit, and say nuffin. American women are discontented, want the earth, but can find nothing to sharpen their axes on, and that is good for us. They may help us in the United States, and we’ll be glad to have ’em, but they’ll never rule. Now I am willing to bet my unmade millions that the Englishwomen will be ruling this country fifty years from now, perhaps twenty. I expect to live to see a woman Prime Minister. You, perhaps! Awful thought!”

“I should like it,” said Julia, frankly. “And I’m glad I wasn’t born an American.”

“Oh, you are you. I don’t class you geographically—except—well, I read up after I’d got a letter or two from you, and it set me thinking—also talking with an astrologer we have in San Francisco, who’s some nuts on Oriental lore. We came to the same conclusion, that you were a lightning streak straight out of the past—not Earth’s past, but some previous solar system —”

“Oh!” Julia sprang to her feet, startled quite out of her visor. “San Francisco! You! It is too uncanny!”

“Hoped I’d get a rise out of you. Nothing uncanny about it. Some of the weirdest characters, not to say scholars, have drifted out there. California is not the God-forsaken hole you may have been led to believe. I’ll admit that lore of any sort is not exactly our business man’s idea of recreation, and but for you I might be in happy ignorance of Oriental mysteries myself.”

“And how much do you believe?”

“Oh, sometimes I laugh at it—and myself, but—perhaps I like the queer romance of it. Lord knows it’s sufficiently un-American. Now that I’ve seen you once more—I’m not so sure how much of it I do believe. You don’t look several hundred thousand years old, not by a long sight. I hope you have a young appetite. Will you come over to the Savoy, or is that not allowed in Militant circles?”

“Nonsense. Once, perhaps; but now I’d lunch with a coal heaver if I chose.”

“Thanks! I have a taxi downstairs—”

“Waiting? You are extravagant! Like your cables. They were too funny.”

“Not at all. I’m more at home in a cable office than in bed.”

“But I thought you were all so badly off in San Francisco?”

“My dear princess, the harder up a San Franciscan is, the more money he spends. I can’t explain; doubtless it’s a law of nature. But if you’ll put on a hat to match that charming frock —”

“I’ll be ready in a second. How nice that you notice what a woman has on. I had almost forgotten that pleasant characteristic of a few men.”

“I shall be here a month, and hope to pass on your entire wardrobe.”

And they went as gayly forth as if indeed the good old friends they fain would feel but could not; but young withal, and agreeably titillated.

IV

If a man and a woman tentatively interested in each other would part for years at the end of a long day together, during which they had talked until every subject on earth seemed exhausted, and ennui inevitable, the cure would be effected before the disease had declared itself. An appreciative thought now and again, a passing regret, other minds as stimulating, the episode is closed. Astute wives have been known to apply a form of this treatment to husbands and the objects of their roving fancy; perchance in time it will be recognized as a sort of love vaccine and scientifically administered.

Julia and Tay talked almost uninterruptedly until eleven o’clock that night, and existed comfortably apart for nearly a week. Julia plunged into routine work with renewed ardors, refused to look at her tea-gowns, and when she thought of Tay at all was rather glad they had met at last and had a jolly talk. Tay sent her a box of roses (automatically), but was too busy to think about her; for the increased importance of his house, to say nothing of his reluctant millions, depended upon the success of his efforts in London. But on Saturday he found himself idle, and promptly thought of Julia. A brief talk on the telephone ended in an invitation to dine at Clement’s Inn that night; and with his desire for feminine society once more alert, and for Julia’s in particular, he appeared with his usual promptness.

Julia, who had grown methodical, had put on the green tea-gown as a logical result of its purchase for the delectation of her old friend; and he gave it instant approval.

“By Jove!” he exclaimed. “That’s the sort of thing you were made for. You look less of a Suffragette than ever. I hope that when you have accomplished your horrible purpose and have nothing to do but vote, you will receive me in a boudoir the same shade.”

“I shouldn’t wonder if I did have a boudoir one of these days— You look rather nice yourself in your evening clothes— That would be a good idea for all of us. We’ll take a rest cure first, and then feminize ourselves just enough.”

“Rather flat, though, to receive women in boudoirs, for no men will go to see you—them.”

“Oh, won’t they? Men will readjust their old ideals when they have to, and be glad of something new in women.”

“Yes, but that sort won’t care a hang about boudoirs.”

“They will about mine. And I’ll promise it shall be large enough for people with long legs. I hope the waiters won’t stumble over yours when they bring in the dinner.”

Tay had had some misgivings about this dinner, having been asked to speak once or twice before women’s clubs, foregathered at the luncheon hour. But Julia had not lost her taste for dainty edibles, and he hardly could have fared better anywhere, save in the city of his birth.

“How is it you know so much about food?” he asked as the dishes were being removed. “You say the Suffragettes are not even masculine, they are sexless. No wonder they could stand gaol. No doubt they live on ancestral memories.”

“Gaol has ruined most of their stomachs, all the same, and I should have choked over every morsel I ate, if I hadn’t deliberately thought about something else—detached my mind.”

“Can you do that?” he asked, looking at her curiously.

“Rather. I learned a good many secrets in the East. I can control both my mental and physical machinery.”

“How appalling! If you found yourself falling in love, I suppose you’d just turn on your mental hose-pipe and wash it out by the roots.”

“Something like that.”

“Julia,” said Tay, removing his cigar and looking at the ash, “what would you really do if you ever did fall in love?”

“I never shall.”

“Ah? Is prophecy included in the mental make-up of the new sex?”

“I mean I’ll never have time.”

“But you’ll win this fight, and then, mercifully, have time to think of other things. There are a few things besides Suffrage in the world even now, you know.”

“We won’t have so much more time; perhaps less. Our work will only just have begun.”

“Yes, but the holy martyr’s fire will have burned out for want of something to feed on. Your interests will be more diverse, at least, your minds less concentrated. Men have time to fall in love, you may have observed. You’ll all begin to look about.”

“I doubt it. We’ve been through too much ever to be quite like other women.”

“Nonsense, Julia, nonsense. You can’t get ahead of Nature. She may take a back seat for a time, but she, being really unhuman, never sleeps. She watches her chance and the moment it comes she gets her fine work in. She hits good and hard, too; all the harder because she appropriates to herself some of the vengeance of the Lord.”

“That’s a man’s reasoning, but it is beside the question as far as I am concerned. Insane people live forever.”

“Have you any prejudice against divorce?”

“Rather not. One of the first things we accomplish is a reform of the unjust divorce laws of this country. But I doubt if even women will consent to the divorce of the insane. It can be done in only one or two states of your own country.”

“True. But a marriage can be annulled if it is shown that one of the parties to the contract was insane at the time of marriage.”

“Marriage can be annulled on the same ground here, but not without more horrors of detail than any woman who had lived with a man for eight years would care to suffer.”

“A simple statement would be enough in Reno—why do you laugh?”

“I have heard of Reno before.”

“Ah?” Tay sat up alertly. “Who else—who has wanted to take you out to Reno and marry you?”

“Oh, that is over long since. He remains a dear friend, my one intimate man friend—except you, of course—but we never meet any more except by accident. He has great responsibilities and is a good deal older now. It has become quite impracticable. Neither of us would desert England.”

“Did you ever love this man?”

“Not enough.”

“What is he like?”

“Oh, the best type of Englishman, and more, for he has genius, and uses it in the interest of the race.”

“Sounds like an infernal prig.”

“He is not!”

“Oh! Is he good-looking?”

“Rather!”

“Do women like him?”

“It shows how really remarkable he is, that he has never been spoiled by them.”

“Are you trying to make me jealous?”

“Of course I am not! I hope I have pulled all my pettiness up by the roots—long ago!”

“You are one of the purest types of female I have ever met. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t radiate charm from every electrical hair on your head.” He had been trying to stride about the little room. He stopped short and leaned both hands on the table. “Julia,” he said, “do you want to know exactly what I think of you?”

“What could be more interesting?”

“I think you are a magnificent bluffer. No, don’t flash those arc-lights on me. I mean you bluff yourself, not the world. You are sincere, all right. But you’ve hypnotized yourself. Ask your old Mohammedan if I’m not right. He gave you a suggestion or two, from all accounts.”

“If you were not talking nonsense, I should be angry. I’m quite well aware that I was deliberately prepared for all this, and long before I went to India. Wait until you meet Bridgit; she’ll tell you her part in it. And even if I were hypnotized? Are not we all more or less? Hypnotized by the currents of life, by its waves beating on our brains? Some are drawn to one current, some to another. It all depends upon our particular gift for usefulness. This happens to be my métier. Sooner or later, whether I had gone to India or not, even if I had not known Bridgit, even if—a friend had not written the book that started us all in this direction, I should have drifted into my current. Only I had the good fortune to be steered soon instead of late.”

“Not bad reasoning.” Tay stared at her for a moment, then took up his restricted march. “All the same there are layers and layers that you have deliberately covered up. Pretended they are not there. That is what I mean by bluffing.”

“Oh, you don’t understand us. Wait until you have met twenty or thirty more.”

“Yes, wait! I don’t propose to know even one more. And I don’t care a continental for the whole Militant bunch. Not even rolled into one magnificent manifestation of sexless sex. I am quite willing to believe they were born that way, and have no desire to dwell on the thought. You are a different proposition.”

“Not at all.”

“Exactly. When a woman is made soft and beautiful and dainty, she’s made for man, don’t you make any mistake about that. Nature is no fool. She hasn’t so much of that sort of material that she can afford to waste it. The number of undesirable women in the world is simply appalling. Mind you—” as Julia nearly overturned the table in her wrath, “I don’t argue that she’s made for that and nothing else. No man has less use for the pretty fool. Nor have I a word to say against this cause you are exercising your talents on. Go ahead and win. It’s a great cause, and deserves a good deal of sacrifice from great women. But for God’s sake don’t go on making a fool of yourself. The real you is under all that manufactured impersonal edifice, and sooner or later, it’ll wake up and knock the impersonal edifice into a cocked hat.”

“Never!” Julia sat down again.

Tay took his own chair and leaned across the table.

“Julia,” he said. “I have heard you speak once. I have read a good many of your more serious speeches. I have had a great many letters from you, all—except those in which you seemed to find some relief in your Eastern experiences—on this one subject. You have given a good deal more than concentration of mind to this cause. You have given it an amount of white-hot passion that not one woman in a million possesses. What are you going to do with that when the cause is won?”

“You are describing all the women—”

“Damn the other women. Do me the favor to leave them out of the conversation. I don’t happen to be a fool, and if I haven’t managed to fall in love all these years, that doesn’t mean I know nothing about women. There is a certain quality of mental passion that springs from sex only. Now you’ve got it, and you’ve got to reckon with it. When do you expect to win this fight?”

“This year. We are almost sure now that the Government is ready to yield, but doesn’t wish to appear coerced. That is the reason we shall declare a truce.”

“Ah? It may be longer than you think. But not so very long. And when that is off your chest, I’m going to marry you.”

“You? You’re not a bit in love with me.”

“I’m not so sure. I came over determined not to be, for although I like strong women, I don’t like ’em too strong. But your personal quality is stronger still—magnetism?—call it what you like —”

“Oh, if that is all, you’ll soon get over it. Remember you are going back to America in a month —”

“Perhaps. That, however, has nothing to do with it. You knocked me out at fifteen, and you’re about to do it again. What have I waited for all these years? I’ve felt superstitious about it before —”

“I don’t love you the least bit, and never could.” And Julia made her eyes look pure steel.

“Oh, couldn’t you? Julia—” He leaned farther across the table and looked into the steel with no appreciable tremor. “Julia, play the part you look for just three minutes and a quarter.”

“Do you want me to kiss you?” asked Julia, furiously.

“Don’t I? I want nothing so much on earth, not even to get the best of those four-flushers in the City.”

“Do you suppose I’d kiss a man unless I intended to marry him?”

“I hope not. I’m quite ready to do the right thing by you.”

“Oh, I wish you would stop joking. It’s rather indecent, anyhow.”

“Not a bit of it. And what do you suppose I’ve come into your life for? To take up your education where Mrs. Maundrell and your Orientals left off. I’m part of the course. I’m inevitable. And if I’ve surrendered, why shouldn’t you?”

“Surrender? I repeat that you are not a bit in love with me.”

“And I repeat that I am not so sure. After we parted the other day, I was comfortably certain there was nothing in it for me, that I was as safe as a cat up a tree. But these last two days—well, I began to be uneasy. I wouldn’t look it squarely in the face, but I was haunted with the idea of something wanting. I was uncomfortable away from you, that is the long and the short of it.”

“You merely wanted some one sympathetic to talk to. I shall introduce you to all my old friends.”

“Delighted to meet them. Or—shall I chuck business and take the next steamer?”

He was pale now and staring hard at her, perplexity and some astonishment deepening in his eyes.

“Good idea,” said Julia, coolly.

“You provocative little— Were you ever a coquette?”

“Of course not.”

“I wish I had been ten years older fifteen years ago. However—” He threw himself back in his chair. “I’ll not cut and run. I’ll be hanged if I do know whether I love you or not. You’ve a physical essence that goes to the head, but you are too self-centred, too unified, to give the complete happiness we men dream of. Fifteen years ago!”

“Do you mean I’m too old?”

“In a way, yes. You have lived too much in these fifteen years, although in one sense you haven’t lived at all. But you have the strength of ten women, and a man would have to be a good deal weaker than I am to want that much counterpoise. And yet you pull me like the devil, and I have admired you more these fifteen years than any woman on earth —”

“Really, you mustn’t disturb yourself,” said Julia, who was now so angry that she looked merely satirical. “I should not marry—neither you nor any one—if my husband were dead and the cause won. Winning the vote for women is merely a necessary preliminary, and my work for them but a part of an ideal of development I conceived even before I went to the East. I have a theory that the world will not improve much until a few women achieve a state of moral and mental perfection far ahead of anything the race has yet known. Such an achievement is impossible to man because he is either oversexed, or the reverse, and in both cases incapable of achieving perfect unity in himself, and absolute strength. But to woman it is possible. There will only be a few of us. Man needn’t worry. The world will always be full of the other kind. But to stand alone! To feel yourself equipped to accomplish for the world what twenty centuries of men have failed in—despite even their honest endeavor—do you fancy that one of us would exchange that great work for what any mere mortal could give us?”

“Whew!” Tay’s eyes, that had looked as hard as her own, flashed and smiled as he sprang to his feet and put on his overcoat. He held out his hand.

“Let’s cut all this out for a time,” he said. “Perhaps you’ve put me off, and perhaps you haven’t. Perhaps you are right. But if you are not, well, out to Reno you go. Is it to-morrow you take me to call on your aunt?”

“Yes. Will you come here?”

“I will. Goodnight.”

After he had gone Julia for an hour stared straight at the wall as if deciphering hieroglyphics. Then she smiled and went to bed.

V

Mrs. Winstone had put on her new intellectual expression. Her lids were slightly drooped, thus banishing the young stare of wonder; her brows were almost intimate, and she had powdered her nose with an art that elevated the bridge.

When Julia and Tay arrived at the house in Tilney Street she was standing beside a table at the end of the drawing-room. One hand rested lightly upon it, the other held a slip of paper. On her left sat Mrs. Maundrell and Lady Dark, on her right Mrs. Flint, a working woman from the slums of Bloomsbury, and an eminent leader in the Militant ranks of her own class. The room was well filled with charmingly gowned women, some mildly but financially sympathetic with the cause of Suffrage, others as mildly adverse. All looked mildly expectant.

“Aunt Maria said nothing about this,” whispered Julia to Tay. “We’ll sit at the back until it’s over—that is, if you think you can stand it.”

“I’ll do my best. Like you, I can detach my mind.”

“Ladies,” began Mrs. Winstone, in a deep grave voice, and not seeing Julia, wondering who on earth the attractive-looking stranger could be, “we all know too much of the great cause which brings us together to-day for me to waste any words on its history. Suffice it to say that—a—” (she referred to the slip in her hand) “it is now a cause which no woman that respects herself can afford to ignore, a cause that for the first time in history has united all classes of women in one indissoluble bond. It originated in the great middle or manufacturing class, eloquently known as the backbone of England, and quickly spread to what is in our generation the most powerful of all, the working class. Thirty members of this great class sit in the House of Commons, but their better part is still clamoring at the gates. I refer, of course, to the thousands of working women now enrolled in the Militant army. One of these, the most—a—distinguished of its leaders, has kindly consented to talk to us to-day. She has her scars of battle. She has stormed the house of the Prime Minister, both when he lived in Cavendish Square, and after he was elevated to the more historic Downing Street. She has six times fought with the police guarding the House of Commons, and three times served a term in Holloway. Her recruits are numberless—Ladies, allow me to introduce Mrs. Flint.”

She sat down and spread out her train. Mrs. Flint rose amidst the pleasant impact of kid, and Julia murmured to Tay: —

“A fine bluffer, my aunt, if you like. But all Englishwomen seem to speak well, by instinct.”

Tay was groaning in spirit, but soon gave his ear to Mrs. Flint, who made a short pointed and effective speech. Her restraint and simplicity alone would have commanded attention. She began by remarking with grim humor that she had not been at all worried by the punching and kicking of the police, as her husband had beaten her every Saturday night for ten years until he disappeared, leaving her to support and bring up seven children as best she might. But although she had long since forgiven him for all this, it being quite in the nature of things, she had enjoyed kicking the policemen back and clawing when she got her chance, as they belonged to that sex which had ruined the lives of two of her girls: one had flung herself into the Thames, and the other come home with her child, shattered in body and mind. Then, dismissing her personal affairs, she went on to speak of the wrongs of working women in general, their miserable wages for men’s work, and the new hope that filled their lives at the prospect of women being able to force men to keep their election promises and command a fixed and adequate wage for women’s work, shorter hours, and improved social conditions; conditions at present beyond the efforts of women on the municipal boards or even of the Friendly Societies. There was no ranting against man. Mrs. Flint recognized that he couldn’t help himself, having been born that way, and incapable of understanding the limited endurance, and the needs, of women and children. She paid a just tribute to the few humane and enlightened men that had improved conditions in the past, but added that she saw no disciples among the present men in power. The only men that seemed to give any thought to the improvement of the poor were the Socialists, and they did nothing but talk and write pamphlets. They showed nothing of the life and the fighting spirit of the women now engaged in a war which would cease only when they were either all dead or victorious. When she had illustrated her address with a number of brief but terrible anecdotes, she finished with an eloquent appeal to her hearers to take part in the next raid on the House of Commons, should the Government fail to keep its tacit promise; and sat down amid a lively applause, as sincere as her speech.

“By Jove!” said Tay. “A working woman! Wish you could see ours. But we have the scum of Europe. Mrs. Flint is the undiluted British article. After all, it doesn’t speak so badly for your men that such women have been allowed to breed in this country—also your own lot. Ever think of that?”

“Rather, and they must take the consequences. We prove ourselves the more logical sex inasmuch as we demand the logical result. Now! Bridgit!”

Mrs. Maundrell spoke like a fiery torrent, reënforcing Mrs. Flint’s personal experiences with several of her own, garnered when she had worked in the slums; and impressing her audience with their duty to go out and fight to mitigate the lot of the poor, even if they had not sufficient self-respect to demand the ballot because it was their right on general principles.

Ishbel followed, speaking with her usual calm practical sense, and her appeal was to the immediate pocket. The funds of the unions must constantly be replenished, and she asked all present, in the soft accents of one unaccustomed to denial, and with her most enchanting smile, to subscribe liberally to the union represented by Mrs. Flint. She herself would distribute the promise cards.

“When I go back,” said Tay, “I’ll drum up all the useless beauties I know and start a class for their education in public speaking, and in thinking of something besides themselves. No wonder these women hit the bull’s-eye every time.”

And he cheerfully parted with five pounds when the distracting Ishbel told him how she had longed to meet this old friend of her own dear friend, and begged him to dine with her on the following evening.

“And you really must take advantage of this truce, dear,” she said to Julia, “and see a bit of the lighter side of life once more. We’ll be just a family party—like old times!”

“Nigel? Is he in town?” asked Julia, in alarm.

“No, he’s in Syria; writes from some hotel on Mount Carmel. I believe you suggested —”

“Ah! At last! I feared he never really would care for the idea.” But the relief in her voice was not in the cause of the Bahai religion.

Here Mrs. Maundrell bore down on them, and her eyes flashed from Tay’s face to Julia’s with an expression of angry misgiving. But Julia was cool and smiling, and Tay shook her hand heartily and protested that he had long thought of her as another old friend. Mrs. Maundrell liked him so spontaneously that she was more alarmed than ever.

“Come and meet my aunt,” said Julia, hastily, and bore him off.

Mrs. Winstone, who knew nothing of the correspondence, almost betrayed her surprise as the two approached her, and wondered if Julia really were going to turn out a woman. At all events she had shown taste in her sudden departure from sixteen years of inhuman indifference. The hostess greeted the one man present with warmth.

“So glad you could come, and so sorry I’m goin’ away. It would have been too jolly to know Charlotte’s brother. But I’m startin’ for my old home in the West Indies on Wednesday.”

“What?” cried Julia. “You never told me.”

“How very odd. But my nerves need a rest. Hannah and Pirie are goin’ with me.”

“To visit my mother?” gasped Julia.

“Rather not. Bath House has been rebuilt, in part. They are goin’ to take the baths for their gout. Any message for your mother?”

“Give her my love, of course.”

“Why not come along?”

“Well, you see, Aunt Maria, I am not quite casual enough, if I am English, to leave my party on a day’s notice.”

“So glad I’m not a leader. I always do what I want, without botherin’ about anybody else. Makes life so simple. How do, Hannah? Have you survived it?”

Tay had been swept off into a vortex of suffragists and antis, all arguing with determination. Julia sought out Ishbel and had a talk in a corner with that ever soothing friend.