I've seen something to-day that I don't feel I want to smile at. And
yet to you it's the most ludicrous spectacle in London.'

'This is all very mysterious.' He turned his long, whimsical face on one
side as he settled himself more comfortably against the cushion.

'You heard why I was late?' she said.

'I took the liberty of doubting the reason you gave!'

'You mustn't. It wasn't even my first offence.'

'You must find time hang very heavy on your hands.'

'On the contrary. I've never known the time to go so fast. Oh, heaps of
people would do what I have, if they only knew how queer and interesting
it is, and how already the outer aspect of the thing is changing. At the
first meetings very few women of any class. Now there are
dozens--scores. Soon there'll be hundreds. There were three thousand
people in the park this afternoon, so a policeman told me, but hardly
any of the class that what Dick Farnborough calls "runs England."'

'I suppose not.'

'You don't even know yet you'll have to deal with all that passionate
feeling, all that fixed determination to bring about a vast,
far-reaching change!--a change so great----'

'That it would knock civilized society into a cocked hat.'

'I wonder.'

'You _wonder_?'

'I wonder if you oughtn't to be reassured by the--bigness of the thing.
It isn't only these women in Hyde Park. They have a Feministe Movement
in France. They say there's a Frauenbewegung in Germany. From Finland to
Italy----'

'Oh, yes, strikes and uprisings. It's an uneasy Age.'

'People in India wanting a greater share in the government----'

'Mad as the Persians----' he smiled--'fancy _Persians_ clamouring for a
representative chamber! It's a sort of epidemic.'

'The Egyptians, too, restless under "benefits." And now everywhere, as
if by some great concerted movement--the Women!'

'Yes, yes; there's plenty of regrettable restlessness up and down the
world, a sort of wave of revolt against the constituted authorities. If
it goes too far--nothing for us but a military despotism!'

She shook her head with a look of such serene conviction that he
persisted, 'I'd be sorry if we came to it--but if this spirit grows,
this rebellion against all forms of control----'

'No, no, against other people's control. Suppose it ends in people
learning self-control.'

'That's the last thing the masses can do. There are few, even of the
_elite_, who have ever done it, and they belong to the Moral
Aristocr