o see Paul turn away from Sophia and say, in a tone
whose fervour might be called marked--

'I'm glad to hear you say so!'

She consolidated her position by asking sweetly, 'Does it need saying?'

'Not by people like you. But it _does_ need saying when it comes to
people we know----'

'Like Mrs. Freddy. Yes.'

That unfortunate little lady seemed to be 'getting it' on all sides.
Even her brother-in-law, who was known to be in reality a great ally of
hers--even Lord Borrodaile was chuckling as though at some reflection
distinctly diverting.

'Poor Laura! She was being unmercifully chaffed about it last night.'

'I don't myself consider it any longer a subject for chaff,' said Lord
John.

'No,' agreed his wife; '_I_ felt that before this last outbreak. At the
time of the first disturbance--where was it?--in some town in the North
several weeks ago----'

'Yes,' said Vida Levering; 'I almost think that was even worse!'

'Conceive the sublime impertinence,' said Lady John, 'of an ignorant
little factory girl presuming to stand up in public and interrupt a
speech by a minister of the Crown!'

'I don't know what we're coming to, I'm sure!' said Borrodaile, with a
detached air.

'Oh, _that_ girl--beyond a doubt,' said his host, with conviction--'that
girl was touched.'

'Oh, beyond a doubt!' echoed Mr. Farnborough.

'There's something about this particular form of feminine folly----'
began Lord John.

But he wasn't listened to--for several people were talking at once.

After receiving a few preliminary kicks, the subject had fallen, as a
football might, plump into the very midst of a group of school-boys. Its
sudden presence there stirred even the sluggish to unwonted feats. Every
one must have his kick at this Suffrage Ball, and manners were for the
nonce in abeyance.

In the midst of an obscuring dust of discussion, floated fragments of
condemnation: 'Sexless creatures!' 'The Shrieking Sisterhood!' etc., in
which the kindest phrase was Lord John's repeated, 'Touched, you know,'
as he tapped his forehead--'not really responsible, poor wretches.
Touched.'

'Still, everybody doesn't know that. It must give men a quite horrid
idea of women,' said Hermione, delicately.

'No'--Lord Borrodaile spoke with a wise forbearance--'we don't confound
a handful of half-insane females with the whole sex.'

Dick Farnborough was in the middle of a spirited account of that earlier
outbreak in the North--

'She was yel