table on the outskirts of the group of
tables. It was the voice of the rosetted steward, who beckoned in a not
unfriendly style.

"Bring us two liqueur brandies, miss," he cried. "And look slippy, if ye
please."

The sharp tone, so sure of obedience, gave Audrey a queer sensation of
being in reality a waitress doomed to tolerate the rough bullying of
gentlemen urgently desiring alcohol. And the fierce thought that
women--especially restaurant waitresses--must and should possess the Vote
surged through her mind more powerfully than ever.

"I'll never have the chance again," she muttered to herself. And marched
to the counter.

"Two liqueur brandies, please," she said to the woman in grey, who had left
her apron calculations. "That's all right," she murmured, as the woman
stared a question at her. Then the woman smiled to herself, and poured out
the liqueur brandies from a labelled bottle with startling adroitness, and
dashed the full glasses on to a brass tray.

As Audrey walked across the gravel carefully balancing the tray, she
speculated whether the public eye would notice the shape of her small
handbag, which was attached by a safety pin to her dress beneath the apron,
and whether her streamers were streaming out far behind her head.

Before she could put the tray down on the table, the rosetted steward, who
looked pale, snatched one of the glasses and gulped down its entire
contents.

"I wanted it!" said he, smacking his lips. "I wanted it bad. They'll catch
'em all right. I should know the young 'un again anywhere. I'll swear to
identify her in any court. And I will. Tasty little piece o' goods, too!...
But not so good-looking as you," he added, gazing suddenly at Audrey.

"None o' your sauce," snapped Audrey, and walked off, leaving the tray
behind.

The two men exploded into coarse but amiable laughter, and called to her to
return, but she would not. "You can pay the other young lady," she said
over her shoulder, pointing vaguely to the counter where there was now a
bevy of other young ladies.

Five minutes later Miss Ingate, and the chauffeur also, received a very
appreciable shock. Half an hour later the car, having called at the
telegraph office, and also at the aghast lodgings of the waitresses to
enable them to reattire and to pack, had quitted Birmingham.

That night they reached Northampton. At the post office there Jane Foley
got a telegram. And when the three were seated in a corner of the c