; even the opal brooch was worn every day because it happened to be
useful. Once a letter from Maurice fell from her bag into the lake, and
she cared no more for it than the swan's feather beside which it
floated.

July came in hot and metallic. Every sunset was a foundry, and the
nights were like smoke. One day towards the end of the month Jenny,
walking down Cranbourn Street, thought she would pay a visit to Lilli
Vergoe. The room had not changed much since the day Jenny joined the
ballet. Lilli, in a soiled muslin dress, was smoking the same brand of
cigarettes in the same wicker-chair. The same photographs clung to the
mirror, or were stacked on the mantelshelf in palisades. The walls were
covered with Mr. Vergoe's relics.

"Hullo, Jenny! So you've found your way here at last. What's been wrong
with you lately? You're looking thin."

"It's this shocking hot weather."

"Why, when you came here before and I said it was hot, you said it was
lovely."

"Did I?" asked Jenny indifferently.

"How's your mother? And dad? And young May?"

"All right. I'm living along with Ireen Dale now."

"I know. Whatever made you do that?"

"Why shouldn't I?"

"I shouldn't call them your style," said Lilli positively.

"Ireen's nice."

"Yes, she's all right. But Winnie Dale's dreadful. And look at her
mother. She's like an old charwoman. And that youngest sister."

"Oh, them, I never see _them_."

"You've heard about me, I suppose?"

"No, what?" asked Jenny, politely inquisitive.

"I've turned suffragette."

"You never haven't? Oh, Lil, what a dreadful thing!"

"It's not. It's great. I used to think so myself, but I've changed my
mind."

"Oh, Lilli, I think it's terrible. A suffragette? But what an unnatural
lot of women you must go around with."

"They're not," said Lilli, loud in defense of her associates.

"A lot of Plain Janes and No Nonsense with their hair all screwed back.
I know. And all walking on one another's petticoats. Suffragette
Sallies! What are they for? Tell me that."

"Hasn't it never struck you there's a whole heap of girls in this world
that's got nothing to do?"

Lilli spoke sadly. There was a life's disillusionment in the question.

"Yes; but that doesn't say they should go making sights of themselves,
shouting and hollering. Get out! Besides, what's the Salvation Army
done?"

"You don't understand."

"No, and I don't want to understand."

"Why don't you come round to our club? I'