the world, responded gaily:

"Good morning."

The man's accent struck her. She said to herself, with amusement:

"He's Irish!"

Audrey had left the astonished but dispassionate gardener at the hedge, and
was now emerging from the scanty and dishevelled plantation close to the
boundary wall of the estate. She supposed that the police must have been on
her track and on the track of Jane Foley, and that by some mysterious skill
they had hunted her down. But she did not care. She was not in the least
afraid. The sudden vision of a jail did not affright her. On the contrary
her chief sensation was one of joyous self-confidence, which sensation had
been produced in her by the remarks and the attitude of Musa. She had
always known that she was both shy and adventurous, and that the two
qualities were mutually contradictory; but now it appeared to her that
diffidence had been destroyed, and that that change which she had ever
longed for in her constitution had at least really come to pass.

"You don't seem very surprised to see me," said Audrey.

"Well, madam," said the detective, "I'm not paid to be surprised--in my
business."

He had raised his hat. He was standing on the dyke, and from that height he
looked somewhat down upon Audrey leaning against the wall. The watercourse
and the strip of eternally emerald-green grass separated them. Though
neither tall nor particularly handsome, he was a personable man, with a
ready smile and alert, agile movements. Audrey was too far off to judge of
his eyes, but she was quite sure that they twinkled. The contrast between
this smart, cheerful fellow and the half-drowned victim in the area of the
house in Paget Gardens was quite acute.

"Now I've a good mind to hold a meeting for your benefit," said Audrey,
striving to recall the proper phrases of propaganda which she had heard in
the proper quarters in London during her brief connection with the cause.
However, she could not recall them, "But there's no need to," she added. "A
gentleman of your intelligence must be of our way of thinking."

"About what?"

"About the vote, of course. And so your conduct is all the more shocking."

"Why!" he exclaimed, laughing. "If it comes to that, your own sex is
against you."

Audrey had heard this argument before, and it had the same effect on her as
on most other stalwarts of the new political creed. It annoyed her, because
there was something in it.

"The vast majority of women are w