fugitive from justice. Thus, when the force of
constables claimed admittance, forty-one women, virtually
indistinguishable one from the other, ran out into the street, and
the bewildered minions of the law were left lifting their helmets to
scratch puzzled heads and admitting "the wimmen were a bit too much
for us, this time, they were."

In her bedroom at 88-90 she kept an equipment of theatrical
disguises; very natural-looking moustaches which could be easily
applied and which remained firmly adhering save under the
application of the right solvent; pairs of tinted spectacles; wigs
of credible appearance; different styles of suiting, different types
of women's dress. She sometimes sat in trains as a handsome,
impressive matron of fifty-five, with a Pompadour confection and a
tortoiseshell _face-a-main_, conversing with ministers of state or
permanent officials on their way to their country seats, and saying
"_Horrid_ creatures!" if any one referred to the activities of the
Suffragettes. Thus disguised she elicited considerable information
sometimes, though she might really be on her way to organize the
break-up of the statesman's public meeting, the enquiry into
discreditable circumstances which might compel his withdrawal from
public life, or merely the burning down of his shooting box.

This life had its risks and perils, but it agreed with her health.
It was exciting and took her mind off Rossiter.

Rossiter for his part experienced a slackening in the tension of his
mind during the same year 1912. He was touched by his wife's faint
suspicion of his alienated affection and by her dogged determination
to be sufficient to him as a companion and a helper; and a little
ashamed at his middle-aged--he was forty-seven--infatuation for a
woman who was herself well on in the thirties. There were times when
a rift came in the cloud of his passion for Vivie, when he looked
out dispassionately on the prospect of the rest of his life--he
could hope at most for twenty more years of mental and bodily
activity and energy. Was this all too brief period to be filled up
with a senile renewal of sexual longing! He felt ashamed of the
thoughts that had occupied so much of his mind since he had laid
David Williams on the couch of his library, to find it was Vivie
Warren whose arms were round his neck. He was not sorry this love
for a woman he could not possess had sent him into Parliament. He
was beginning to enjoy himself there. He