nerally they want something reasonable. We don't
legislate for the freaks, the unbalanced, the abnormal; or if we do
restrict the vote in those cases, let's restrict it for males as
well as females--But don't you see at the same time what a text I
should furnish to this malign creature if I ran away to Paris with
Michael, and made the slightest false step ... even though it had no
bearing on the main argument?..."

At this juncture Vivie, whose obsession leads her more and more to
address every one as a public meeting--is interrupted by the smiling
_bonne a tout faire_ who announces that _le dejeuner de Madame est
servi_, and the two women gathering up books and shawls go in to the
gay little _saile-a-manger_ of the Villa Beau-sejour.

On Vivie's return to London, after her Easter holiday, she threw
herself with added zest into the Suffrage struggle. The fortnight of
good feeding, of quiet nights and lazy days under her mother's roof
had done her much good. She was not quite so thin, the dark circles
under her grey eyes had vanished, and she found not only in herself
but even in the most middle-aged of her associates a delightful
spirit of tomboyishness in their swelling revolt against the Liberal
leaders. It was specially during the remainder of 1912 that Vivie
noted the enormous good which the Suffrage movement had done and was
doing to British women. It was producing a splendid camaraderie
between high and low. Heroines like Lady Constance Lytton
mingled as sister with equally heroic charwomen, factory girls,
typewriteresses, waitresses and hospital nurses. Women doctors of
Science, Music, and Medicine came down into the streets and did the
bravest actions to present their rights before a public that now
began to take them seriously. Debutantes, no longer quivering with
fright at entering the Royal Presence, modestly but audibly called
their Sovereign's attention to the injustice of Mr. Asquith's
attitude towards women, while princesses of the Blood Royal had
difficulty in not applauding. Many a tame cat had left the fire-side
and the skirts of an inane old mother (who had plenty of people to
look after her selfish wants) and emerged, dazed at first, into a
world that was unknown to her. Such had thrown away their crochet
hooks, their tatting-shuttles and fashion articles, their Church
almanacs, and Girl's Own Library books, and read and talked of
social, sexual, and industrial problems that have got to be faced
a