n't process here. We've let 'em out
an hour too soon."

A policeman came from the prison-yard. He blew a whistle. Four taxi-cabs
crept round the corner furtively, driven by visibly hilarious
chauffeurs.

"The triumphant procession from Holloway," said the Cabinet Minister,
"is you and me, sir, and those taxi-cabs."

On the other side of the gates a woman laughed. The released prisoners
were coming down the prison-yard.

The Cabinet Minister cranked up his engine with an unctuous glee. He was
boyishly happy because he and the Home Secretary had done them out of
the Car of Victory and the thirteen white horses.

The prison-gates opened. The Cabinet Minister and Drayton raised their
caps.

The leaders, Mrs. Blathwaite and Angela Blathwaite and Mrs.
Palmerston-Swete came first. Then Lady Victoria Threlfall. Then
Dorothea. Then sixteen other women.

Drayton did not look at them. He did not see what happened when the
Cabinet Minister met his wife. He did not see the sixteen other women.
He saw nothing but Dorothea walking by herself.

She had no hat on. Her clothes were as the great raid had left them, a
month ago. Her serge coat was torn at the breast pocket, the
three-cornered flap hung, showing the white lining. Another
three-cornered flap hung from her right knee. She carried her small,
hawk-like head alert and high. Her face had the incomparable bloom of
youth. Her eyes shone. They and her face showed no memory of the
prison-cell, the plank-bed, and the prison walls; they showed no sense
of Drayton's decency in coming to meet her, no sense of anything at all
but of the queerness, the greatness and the glory of the world--of him,
perhaps, as a part of it. She stepped into the car as if they had met by
appointment for a run into the country. "I shan't hurt your car. I'm
quite clean, though you mightn't think it. The cells were all right
this time."

He disapproved of her, yet he adored her.

"Dorothy," he said, "do you want to go to that banquet?"

"No, but I've got to. I must go through with it. I swore I'd do the
thing completely or not at all."

"It isn't till nine. We've three whole hours before we need start."

"What are you going to do with me?"

"I'm going to take you home first. Then I suppose I shall have to drive
you down to that beastly banquet."

"That won't take three and a half hours. It's a heavenly morning. Can't
we do something with it?"

"What would you like to do?"

"I'd like to s