rt of coherent thinking or
concerted action."'

'To think,' said Jean, more sympathetically, 'that it should be women
who've given their own scheme the worst blow it ever had!'

'The work of forty years destroyed in five minutes!'

'They must have felt pretty sick,' said the girl, 'when they waked up
the next morning--those Suffragettes.'

'I don't waste any sympathy on _them_. I'm thinking of the penalty _all_
women have to pay because two or three hysterical----'

'Still, I think I'm sorry for them,' the girl persisted. 'It must be
dreadful to find you've done such a lot of harm to the thing you care
most about in the world.'

'Do you picture the Suffragettes sitting in sack-cloth?' said Vida,
speaking at last.

'Well, they can't help realizing _now_ what they've done.'

'Isn't it just possible they realize they've waked up interest in the
Woman Question so that it's advertised in every paper, and discussed
under every roof, from Land's End to John-o'-Groats? Don't you think
_they_ know there's been more said and written about it in these days
since the scene than in the ten years before it!'

'You aren't saying you think it was a good way to get what they wanted!'
exclaimed Mrs. Freddy.

'I'm only pointing out that it seems not such a bad way to get it known
they _do_ want something, and--"want it bad,"' Vida added, smiling.

Jean drew her low chair almost in front of the lady who had so wounded
her sensibilities a little while before with that charge of
popularity-hunting.

'Mrs. Tunbridge says before that horrid scene everything was favourable
at last,' the girl hazarded.

'Yes,' said Mrs. Freddy, 'we never had so many friends in the House
before----'

'"Friends,"' echoed the other woman, with a faint smile.

'Why do you say it like that?'

'Because I was thinking of a funny story--(he _said_ it was funny)--a
Liberal Whip told me the other day. A Radical member went out of the
House after his speech in favour of the Women's Bill, and as he came
back half an hour later he heard some members talking in the lobby about
the astonishing number who were going to vote for the measure. And the
Friend of Woman dropped his jaw and clutched the man next him. "My God!"
he said, "you don't mean they're going to _give_ it to them!"'

'Sh! Here is Ronald.' Mrs. Freddy's tact brought her smiling to her feet
as the figure of her brother-in-law appeared in the doorway. But she
turned her back on him and affecte