white collar; even her ears went red.
She looked away into a corner.

'You see,' said Victoria, 'it's a shock, isn't it? I ought not to have
let you in. It wasn't quite fair, was it?'

'Oh, it isn't that, Mrs Ferris,' burst out the suffragist, 'I'm not
thinking of myself. . . .'

'Excuse me, you must. You can't help it. If you could construct a scale
with the maximum of egotism at one end, and the maximum of altruism at
the other and divide it, say into one hundred degrees, you would not, I
think, place your noblest thinkers more than a degree or two beyond the
egotistic zero. Now you, a pure girl, have been entrapped into the house
of a woman of no reputation, whom you would not have in your
drawing-room. Now, would you?'

Miss Welkin was silent for a moment; the flush was dying away as she
gazed round eyed at this beautiful woman lying in her piled cushions,
talking like a mathematician.

'I haven't come here to ask you into my drawing-room,' she answered. 'I
have come to ask you to throw in your labour, your time, your money,
with ours in the service of our cause.' She held her head higher as the
thought rose in her like wine. 'Our cause,' she continued, 'is not the
cause of rich women or poor women, of good women or bad; it's the cause
of woman. Thus, it doesn't matter who she is, so long as there is a
woman who stands aloof from us there is still work to do.'

Victoria looked at her interestedly. Her eyes were shining, her lips
parted in ecstasy.

'Oh, I know what you think,' the suffragist went on; 'as you say, you
think I despise you because you . . . you. . . .' The flush returned
slightly. . . . 'But I know that yours is not a happy life and we are
bringing the light.'

'The light!' echoed Victoria bitterly. 'You have no idea, I see, of how
many people there are who are bringing the light to women like me. There
are various religious organisations who wish to rescue us and to house
us comfortably under the patronage of the police, to keep us nicely and
feed us on what is suitable for the fallen; they expect us to sew ten
hours a day for these privileges, but that is by the way. There are also
many kindly souls who offer little jobs as charwomen to those of us who
are too worn out to pursue our calling; we are offered emigration as
servants in exchange for the power of commanding a household; we are
offered poverty for luxury, service for domination, slavery to women
instead of slavery to men. How temp