"I should say that it did matter," she replied. "But there's something
unusual about her--where did you find her?"

"She found me." And Insall explained. "She was a stenographer, it seems,
but now she's enlisted heart and soul with the syndicalists," he added.

"A history?" Mrs. Maturin queried. "Well, I needn't ask--it's written on
her face."

"That's all I know," said Insall.

"I'd like to know," said Mrs. Maturin. "You say she's in the strike?"

"I should rather put it that the strike is in her."

"What do you mean, Brooks?"

But Insall did not reply.

Janet came away from Dey Street in a state of mental and emotional
confusion. The encounter with Mrs. Brocklehurst had been upsetting; she
had an uneasy feeling of having made a fool of herself in Insall's eyes;
she desired his approval, even on that occasion when she had first met
him and mistaken him for a workman she had been conscious of a compelling
faculty in him, of a pressure he exerted demanding justification of
herself; and to-day, because she was now pledged to Syndicalism, because
she had made the startling discovery that he was a writer of some renown,
she had been more than ever anxious to vindicate her cause. She found
herself, indeed, wondering uneasily whether there were a higher truth of
which he was in possession. And the fact that his attitude toward her had
been one of sympathy and friendliness rather than of disapproval, that
his insight seemed to have fathomed her case, apprehended it in all but
the details, was even more disturbing--yet vaguely consoling. The
consolatory element in the situation was somehow connected with the lady,
his friend from Silliston, to whom he had introduced her and whose image
now came before her the more vividly, perhaps, in contrast with that of
Mrs. Brocklehurst. Mrs. Maturin--could Janet have so expressed her
thought! had appeared as an extension of Insall's own personality. She
was a strong, tall, vital woman with a sweet irregularity of feature,
with a heavy crown of chestnut hair turning slightly grey, quaintly
braided, becomingly framing her face. Her colour was high. The impression
she conveyed of having suffered was emphasized by the simple mourning
gown she wore, but the dominant note she had struck was one of
dependability. It was, after all, Insall's dominant, too. Insall had
asked her to call again; and the reflection that she might do so was
curiously comforting. The soup kitchen in the loft, w