ked her head away and faced the group round
the tea-table. 'What is she saying? That she's been to a Suffrage
meeting in Hyde Park!'

'How could she! Nothing would induce me to go and listen to such
people!' said Miss Dunbarton.

Her eyes, as well as Mrs. Heriot's, were riveted on the tall figure,
tea-cup in hand, moving away from the table now to make room for some
new arrivals, and drawing after her a portion of the company, including
Lady Whyteleafe and Richard Farnborough, who one after another had come
in a few moments before. It was to the young man that Greatorex was
saying, with a twinkle, 'I am sure Mr. Farnborough agrees with me.'

Slightly self-conscious, he replied, 'About Miss Levering being
too--a----'

'For that sort of thing altogether "too."'

'How do you know?' said the lady herself, with a teasing smile.

Greatorex started out of the chair in which he had just deposited
himself at her side. 'God bless my soul!' he said.

'She's only saying that to get a rise out of you.' Farnborough seemed
unable to bear the momentary shadow obscuring the lady's brightness.

'Ah, yes'--Greatorex leaned back again--'your frocks aren't serious
enough.'

'Haven't I been telling you it's an exploded notion that the Suffrage
people are all dowdy and dull?'

'Pooh!' said Mr. Greatorex.

'You talk about some of them being pretty,' Farnborough said. '_I_
didn't see a good-looking one among 'em.'

'Ah, you men are so unsophisticated; you missed the fine feathers.'

'Plenty o' feathers on the one I heard.'

'Yes, but not _fine_ feathers. A man judges of the general effect. We
can, at a pinch, see past unbecoming clothes, can't we, Lady Whyteleafe?
We see what women could make of themselves if they took the trouble.'

'All the same,' said the lady appealed to, 'it's odd they don't see how
much better policy it would be if they _did_ take a little trouble about
their looks. Now, if we got our maids to do those women's hair for
them--if we lent them our French hats--ah, _then_'--Lady Whyteleafe
nodded till the pear-shaped pearls in her ears swung out like milk-white
bells ringing an alarum--'they'd convert you creatures fast enough
then.'

'Perhaps "convert" is hardly the word,' said Vida, with ironic mouth. As
though on an impulse, she bent forward to say, with her lips near Lady
Whyteleafe's pearl drop: 'What if it's the aim of the movement to get
away from the need of just these little dodges?'

'Dodges?'