was annoyed at being annoyed.

"If I can't face a walk in a field alone with Ralph," she reasoned, "I'd
better buy a cat and live in a lodging at Ealing, like Sally Seal--and
he won't come. Or did he mean that he WOULD come?"

She shook her head. She really did not know what he had meant. She never
felt quite certain; but now she was more than usually baffled. Was
he concealing something from her? His manner had been odd; his deep
absorption had impressed her; there was something in him that she had
not fathomed, and the mystery of his nature laid more of a spell upon
her than she liked. Moreover, she could not prevent herself from doing
now what she had often blamed others of her sex for doing--from endowing
her friend with a kind of heavenly fire, and passing her life before it
for his sanction.

Under this process, the committee rather dwindled in importance;
the Suffrage shrank; she vowed she would work harder at the Italian
language; she thought she would take up the study of birds. But this
program for a perfect life threatened to become so absurd that she very
soon caught herself out in the evil habit, and was rehearsing her speech
to the committee by the time the chestnut-colored bricks of Russell
Square came in sight. Indeed, she never noticed them. She ran upstairs
as usual, and was completely awakened to reality by the sight of Mrs.
Seal, on the landing outside the office, inducing a very large dog to
drink water out of a tumbler.

"Miss Markham has already arrived," Mrs. Seal remarked, with due
solemnity, "and this is her dog."

"A very fine dog, too," said Mary, patting him on the head.

"Yes. A magnificent fellow," Mrs. Seal agreed. "A kind of St. Bernard,
she tells me--so like Kit to have a St. Bernard. And you guard your
mistress well, don't you, Sailor? You see that wicked men don't break
into her larder when she's out at HER work--helping poor souls who have
lost their way.... But we're late--we must begin!" and scattering the
rest of the water indiscriminately over the floor, she hurried Mary into
the committee-room.

CHAPTER XIV

Mr. Clacton was in his glory. The machinery which he had perfected and
controlled was now about to turn out its bi-monthly product, a committee
meeting; and his pride in the perfect structure of these assemblies was
great. He loved the jargon of committee-rooms; he loved the way in which
the door kept opening as the clock struck the hour, in obedience to
a few