. I had to go on with them. I swear I wasn't excited
or carried away in the least. Two women near me were yelling at the
police. I hated them. But I felt I'd be an utter brute if I left them
and got off safe. You see, it was an ugly crowd, and things were
beginning to be jolly dangerous, and I'd funked it badly. Only the first
minute. It went--the funk I mean--when I saw the woman go down. She fell
sort of slanting through the crowd, and it was horrible. I couldn't have
left them then any more than I could have left children in a
burning house.

"I thought of you."

"You thought of me?"

"Yes. I thought of you--how you'd have hated it. But I didn't care. I
was sort of boosted up above caring. The funk had all gone and I was
absolutely happy. Not insanely happy like some of the other women, but
quietly, comfily happy.

"After all, I didn't do anything you _need_ have minded."

"What _did_ you do?" he said.

"I just went on and stood still and refused to go back. I stuck my hands
in my pockets so that I shouldn't let out at a policeman or anything (I
knew you wouldn't like _that_). I may have pushed a bit now and then
with my shoulders and my elbows; I can't remember. But I didn't make one
sound. I was perfectly lady-like and perfectly dignified."

"I suppose you _know_ you haven't got a hat on?"

"It didn't _come_ off. I _took_ it off and threw it to the crowd when
the row began. It doesn't matter about your hair coming down if you
haven't got a hat on, but if your hair's down and your hat's bashed in
and all crooked you look a perfect idiot.

"It wasn't a bad fight, you know, twenty-one women to I don't know how
many policemen, and the front ones got right into the doorway of St.
Stephen's. That was where they copped me.

"But that, isn't the end of it.

"The fight was only the first part of the adventure. The wonderful thing
was what happened afterwards. In prison.

"I didn't think I'd really _like_ prison. That was another thing I
funked. I'd heard such awful things about it, about the dirt, you know.
And there wasn't any dirt in my cell, anyhow. And after the crowds of
women, after the meetings and the speeches, the endless talking and the
boredom, that cell was like heaven.

"Thank God, it's always solitary confinement. The Government doesn't
know that if they want to make prison a deterrent they'll shut us up
together. You won't give the Home Secretary the tip, will you?

"But that isn't what I wa