visitor was shown in.

'How do you do?' said Victoria holding out her hand. 'Please sit down.
Excuse my getting up, I'm not very well.'

Miss Welkin looked about her, mildly surprised. It was a pretty room,
but somehow she felt uncomfortable. Victoria was looking at her. A
capable type of femininity this; curious, though, in its thick man-like
clothes, its strong boots. She was not bad looking, thirty perhaps, very
erect and rather flat. Her face was fresh, clean, innocent of powder;
her eyes were steady behind glasses; her hair was mostly invisible,
being tightly pulled back. There were firm lines about her mouth. A
fighting animal.

'I hope you'll excuse this intrusion,' said the suffragist, 'but I got
your name from the directory and I have come to . . . to ascertain your
views about the all-important question of the vote.' There was a queer
stiltedness about the little speech. Miss Welkin was addressing the
meeting.

'Oh? I'm very much interested,' said Victoria. 'Of course I don't know
anything about it except what I read in the papers.'

The grey eyes glittered. Evangelic fervour radiated from them. 'That's
what we want,' said the suffragist. 'It's just the people who are ready
to be our friends who haven't heard our side and who get biassed. Mrs
Ferris, I'm sure you'll come in with us and join the Marylebone branch?'

'But how can I?' asked Victoria. 'You see I know nothing about it all.'

'Let me give you these pamphlets,' said the suffragist. Victoria
obediently took a leaflet on the marriage law, a pamphlet on 'The Rights
of Women,' a few more papers too, some of which slipped to the floor.

'Thank you,' she said, 'but first of all tell me, why do you want the
vote?'

The suffragist looked at her for a second. This might be a keen recruit
when she was converted. Then a flood of words burst from her.

'Oh, how can any woman ask, when she sees the misery, the subjection in
which we live. We say that we want the vote because it is the only means
we have to attain economic freedom . . . we say to man: "Put your weapon
in our hands and we will show you what we can do." We want to have a
voice in the affairs of the country. We want to say how the taxes we pay
shall be spent, how our children shall be educated, whether our sons
shall go to war. We say it's wrong that we should be disfranchised
because we are women . . . it is illogical . . . we must have it.'

The suffragist stopped for a second to regai