The train drew in, and he found her a corner seat, and stood talking by the window, about common things. She threw herself into the suffrage movement. It satisfied her for a while. She had the rare gift of public speaking, and enjoyed her triumphs. She was temperate, reasonable; persuasive rather than aggressive; feeling her audience as she went, never losing touch with them. She had the magnetism that comes of sympathy. Medical students who came intending to tell her to go home and mind the baby, remained to wonder if man really was the undoubted sovereign of the world, born to look upon woman as his willing subject; to wonder whether under some unwritten whispered law it might not be the other way about. Perhaps she had the right—with or without the baby—to move about the kingdom, express her wishes for its care and management. Possibly his doubts may not have been brought about solely by the force and logic of her arguments. Possibly the voice of Nature is not altogether out of place in discussions upon Humanity’s affairs.!

“I thought perhaps you hadn’t from your tone,” explained Madge. He laughed. “You will find all your pet reforms depend upon it, when you come to work them out,” he said. “You can’t have a minimum wage without a minimum price.”

“Bit of bad luck for both of us,” suggested Mr. Halliday. Mrs. Denton knew just the right people. They might be induced to bring their sons and daughters—it might be their grandchildren, youth being there to welcome them. For Joan, of course, would play her part. It took a long time, and Joan, seated on the bed, remembered a night when she had taken a trapped mouse (if only he had been a quiet mouse!) into the bathroom and had waited while it drowned. It was finished at last, and Mrs Phillips stood revealed with her hair down, showing streaks of dingy brown.