d by writing out a cheque
disembarrassed herself at a stroke of every anxiety incident to defective
magnetos, bad petrol, bad rubber, punctures, driving licences, bursts,
collisions, damages, and human chauffeurs. She had all the satisfactions of
owning a car without any of the cares. One of the evidences of progress in
the Blue City was an exhibit of this very firm of middlemen.

From the pale blue tripod table at which sat the three women could be
plainly seen the vast Imperial Hall, flanked on one side by the great
American Dragon Slide, a side-show loudly demonstrating progress, and on
the other by the unique Joy Wheel side-show. At the doorway of the latter a
man was bawling proofs of progress through a megaphone.

Immense crowds had been gathering in the Imperial Hall, and the lines of
political enthusiasts bound thither were now thinning. The Blue City was
full of rumours, as that the Cabinet Minister was too afraid to come, as
that he had been smuggled to the hall inside a tea-chest, and as that he
had walked openly and unchallenged through the whole Exhibition. It was no
rumour, but a sure fact, that two women had been caught hiding on the roof
of the Imperial Hall, under natural shelters formed by the beams and
boarding supporting the pediment of the eastern facade, and that they were
ammunitioned with flags and leaflets and a silk ladder, and had made a hole
in the roof exactly over the platform. These two women had been seen in
charge of policemen at the Exhibition police-station. It was understood by
many that they were the last hope of militancy that afternoon; many others,
on the contrary, were convinced that they had been simply a feint.

"Well," said Miss Ingate suddenly, glancing up at the Imperial clock, "I
think I shall move outside and sit in the car. I think that'll be the best
place for me. I said that night in Paris that I'd get my arm broken, but
I've changed my mind about that." She rose.

"Winnie," protested Audrey, "aren't you going to see it out?"

"No," said Miss Ingate.

"Are you afraid?"

"I don't know that I'm afraid. I played the barrel organ all the way down
Regent Street, and it was smashed to pieces. But I don't want to go to
prison. Really, I don't _want_ to. If me going to prison would bring the
Vote a single year nearer, I should say: 'Let it wait a year.' If me not
going to prison meant no Vote for ever and ever, I should say: 'Well,
struggle on without the Vote.' I've no o