aid, "because if she's the sort of girl who gets
arrested, she'll be most useful to us. She was quite on for annoying
Vittie. She says she's been looking up his speeches and that he's one of
the worst liars she ever came across. She's quite right there."

"I wish," I said, "that you'd go and bail her out. Her father's
a clergyman and it will be a horrible thing if there's any public
scandal."

"I hinted at that as delicately as I could. I didn't actually mention
bail, because I wasn't quite sure that a Jun. Soph. Ord. mightn't be
something in the Probate and Divorce Court. She simply laughed at me and
said she didn't want any help. She told me that she and Hilda, whoever
Hilda is, are sure to be all right, because the Puffin is always
a lamb--I suppose the Puffin is some name they have for the
magistrate--but that a Miss Harrison would probably be stuck."

"She can't have said Miss Harrison."

"No. She said Selly, or Selby-Harrison, short for Selina I thought."

"As a matter of fact, Selby-Harrison--it's a hyphenated surname--is a
man."

"Oh, is it?" said Titherington, using the neuter pronoun because, I
suppose, he was still uncertain about Selby-Harrison's sex.

"I wish," I said, "that I knew exactly what they've done."

"It doesn't in the least matter to us. So long as she's the kind of
young woman who does something we shall be satisfied."

"Oh, she's that."

"So I saw. And she's an uncommonly good-looking girl. The crowd will be
all on her side when she starts breaking up Vittie's meetings."

"You accepted her offer of help then?"

"Certainly," said Titherington. "She's to speak at a meeting of yours on
the twenty-first."

Titherington was by this time talking with all his usual buoyant
confidence, but I still caught the furtive look in his eyes which I had
noticed at first. He seemed to me to have something to conceal, to be
challenging criticism and to be preparing to defend himself. Now a man
who is on the defensive and who wants to conceal something has generally
acted in a way of which he is ashamed. I felt encouraged.

"You didn't commit me in any way, I hope," I said.

"Certainly not. I didn't have to. She was as keen as nuts on helping
us and didn't ask a single question about your views on the suffrage
question. I needn't say I didn't introduce the subject."

"You didn't sign anything, I suppose?"

Titherington became visibly embarrassed. He hesitated.

"I rather expected you'd have t