y.'

'Well, intelligence then. Oh, Mrs Ferris, it's not that that matters;
we're going to the root of it. We're going to make women equal to men,
give them the same opportunities, the same rights. . . .'

'Yes, but will the vote increase their muscles? will it make them more
logical, fitter to earn their living?'

'Of course it will,' said Miss Welkin acidly.

'Then how do you explain that several millions of men earn less than
thirty shillings a week, and that at times hundreds of thousands are
unemployed?'

'The vote does not mean everything,' said the suffragist reluctantly.
'It will merely ensure that we rise like the men when we are fit.'

'Well, Miss Welkin, I won't press that, but now, tell me, if women got
the vote to-morrow, what would it do for my class?'

'It would raise. . . .'

'No, no, we can't wait to be raised. We've got to live, and if you
"raise" us we lose our means of livelihood. How are you going to get to
the root cause and lift us, not the next generation, at once out of the
lower depths?'

The suffragist's face contracted.

'Everything takes time,' she faltered. 'Just as I couldn't promise a
charwoman that her hours would go down and her wages go up next day, I
can't say that . . . of course your case is more difficult than any
other, because . . . because. . . .'

'Because,' said Victoria coldly, 'I represent a social necessity. So
long as your economic system is such that there is not work for the
asking for every human being--work, mark you, fitted to strength and
ability--so long on the other hand as there is such uncertainty as
prevents men from marrying, so long as there is a leisured class who
draw luxury from the labour of other men; so long will my class endure
as it endured in Athens, in Rome, in Alexandria, as it does now from St
John's Wood to Pekin.'

There was a pause. Then Miss Welkin got up awkwardly. Victoria followed
suit.

'There,' she said, 'you don't mind my being frank, do you? May I
subscribe this sovereign to the funds of the branch? I do believe you
are right, you know, even though I'm not sure the millennium is
coming.'

Miss Welkin looked doubtfully at the coin in her palm.

'Don't refuse it,' said Victoria, smiling, 'after all, you know, in
politics there is no tainted money.'

CHAPTER XIV

VICTORIA lay back in bed, gazing at the blue silk wall. It was ten
o'clock, but still dark; not a sound disturbed dominical peace, except
the rain dr