ter of an hour he
became conscious that he should not be able to repeat a word she had
said; he had not definitely heeded it, and yet he had not lost a
vibration of her voice. He had discovered Olive Chancellor by this time;
she was in the front row of chairs, at the end, on the left; her back
was turned to him, but he could see half her sharp profile, bent down a
little and absolutely motionless. Even across the wide interval her
attitude expressed to him a kind of rapturous stillness, the
concentration of triumph. There were several irrepressible effusions of
applause, instantly self-checked, but Olive never looked up, at the
loudest, and such a calmness as that could only be the result of
passionate volition. Success was in the air, and she was tasting it; she
tasted it, as she did everything, in a way of her own. Success for
Verena was success for her, and Ransom was sure that the only thing
wanting to her triumph was that he should have been placed in the line
of her vision, so that she might enjoy his embarrassment and confusion,
might say to him, in one of her dumb, cold flashes--"_Now_ do you think
our movement is not a force--_now_ do you think that women are meant to
be slaves?" Honestly, he was not conscious of any confusion; it
subverted none of his heresies to perceive that Verena Tarrant had even
more power to fix his attention than he had hitherto supposed. It was
fixed in a way it had not been yet, however, by his at last
understanding her speech, feeling it reach his inner sense through the
impediment of mere dazzled vision. Certain phrases took on a meaning for
him--an appeal she was making to those who still resisted the beneficent
influence of the truth. They appeared to be mocking, cynical men,
mainly; many of whom were such triflers and idlers, so heartless and
brainless that it didn't matter much what they thought on any subject;
if the old tyranny needed to be propped up by _them_ it showed it was in
a pretty bad way. But there were others whose prejudice was stronger and
more cultivated, pretended to rest upon study and argument. To those she
wished particularly to address herself; she wanted to waylay them, to
say, "Look here, you're all wrong; you'll be so much happier when I have
convinced you. Just give me five minutes," she should like to say; "just
sit down here and let me ask a simple question. Do you think any state
of society can come to good that is based upon an organised wrong?" That