hold the attention of those tired workmen. They hadn't stopped there
to be made to think--if they weren't going to be amused, they'd go home.
A certain number did go home, after pausing to ask the young Reformer,
more or less good-humouredly, why she didn't get married. Lord
Borrodaile had privately asked for enlightenment on the same score. Vida
had only smiled. One man varied the monotony by demanding why, if it
would be a good thing for the working class to have women voting, why
didn't the Labour Party take up the question.

'Some of the Labour Party have,' Ernestine told them, 'but the others
are afraid. They've been told that women are such slaves to
convention--such timid creatures! They know their own women aren't, but
they're doubtful about the rest. The Labour Party, you know'--she spoke
with a condescending forbearance--'the Labour Party is young yet, and
knows what it's like to feel timid. Some of the Labour men have the wild
notion that women would all vote Conservative.'

'So they would!'

But Ernestine shook her head. 'While we are trying to show the people
who say that, that even if they were right, it would be no excuse
whatever for denying our claim to vote whichever way we thought best.
While we are going to the root of the principle of the thing, another
lot of logical gentlemen are sure to say, "Oh, it would never do to have
women voting. They'd be going in for all sorts of new-fangled reforms,
and the whole place would be turned upside down!" So between the men who
think we'd all turn Tory and the men who are sure we'd all be
Socialists, we don't seem likely to get very far, unless we do something
to show them we mean to have it for no better reason than just that
we're human beings!'

'Isn't she delightfully--direct!' whispered Miss Levering, eager to cull
some modest flower of praise.

'Oh, direct enough!' His tone so little satisfied the half-maternal
pride of the other woman that she was almost prepared for the slighting
accent in which he presently asked, 'Is this the sort of thing that's
supposed to convert people to a great constitutional change?'

'It isn't our women would get the vote,' a workman called out. 'It's the
rich women.'

'Is it only the rich men who have the vote?' demanded Ernestine. 'You
know it isn't. We are fighting to get the franchise on precisely the
same terms as men.'

For several moments the wrangle went on.

'Would wives have a vote?'

She showed how tha