pestuously at Miss Burstall and Miss Farmer
who did not flinch), "I will tell you. I am a fighter. I am here to
enlist volunteers. I am the recruiting sergeant for this district. That
is the use my leaders, who should be _your_ leaders, are making
of _me_."

Her head was thrown back, her body swayed, rocked from side to side with
the violent rhythm of her speech.

"If you ask me why they have chosen _me_ I will tell you. It's because I
know what I want and because I know how to get what I want.

"I know what I want. Oh, yes, you think that's nothing; you all think
you know what you want. But do you? _Do_ you?"

"Of course we do!"

"We want the vote!"

"Nothing but the vote!"

"_Nothing but?_ Are you quite sure of that? Can you even say you want it
till you know whether there are things you want more?"

"What are you driving at?"

"You'll soon see what I'm driving at. I drive straight. And I ride
straight. And I don't funk my fences.

"Well--say you all want the vote. Do you know how much you want it? Do
you know how much you want to pay for it? Do you know what you're
prepared to give up for it? Because, if you don't know _that_, you don't
know how much you want it."

"We want it as much as you do, I imagine."

"You want it as much as I do? Good. _Then_ you're going to pay the price
whatever the price is. _Then_ you're ready to give up everything else,
your homes and your families and your friends and your incomes. Until
you're enfranchised you are not going to own any _man_ as father, or
brother or husband" (her voice rang with a deeper and stronger
vibration) "or lover, or friend. And the man who does not agree with
you, the man who refuses you the vote, the man who opposes your efforts
to get the vote, the man who, whether he agrees with you or not, _will
not help you to get it_, you count as your enemy. That is wanting the
vote. That is wanting it as much as I do.

"You women--are you prepared to go against your men? To give up your
men?"

There were cries of "Rather!" from two of the eleven young girls who had
come too soon.

Miss Burstall shook her head and murmured, "Hopeless confusion of
thought. If _this_ is what it's going to be like, Heaven help us!"

"You really _are_ getting a bit mixed," said Dorothy.

"We protest--"

"Protest then; protest as much as you like. Then we shall know where we
are; then we shall get things straight; then we can begin. You all want
the vote. Some of you