bare, too, and bony as an old maid, with no soft
cuddly places like the parks at home; no gracious green stretches, and
no rose gardens. But somehow, it grows on you. The reticence of it. And
that stretch of meadow near the Mall, in the late afternoon, with the
mist on it, and the sky faintly pink, and that electric sign--Somebody's
Tires or other--winking off and on--"

"You're a queer child," interrupted Fenger. "As wooden as an Indian
while talking about a million-a-year deal, and lyrical over a
combination of electric sign, sunset, and moth-eaten park. Oh, well,
perhaps that's what makes you as you are."

Even Ella looked a little startled at that.

They had tea at Claremont, at a table overlooking the river and the
Palisades. Fenger was the kind of man to whom waiters always give a
table overlooking anything that should be overlooked. After tea they
drove out along the river and came back in the cool of the evening.
Fanny was very quiet now. Fenger followed her mood. Ella sustained the
conversation, somewhat doggedly. It was almost seven when they reached
the plaza exit. And there Fanny, sitting forward suddenly, gave a little
cry.

"Why--they're marching yet!" she said, and her voice was high with
wonder. "They're marching yet! All the time we've been driving and
teaing, they've been marching."

And so they had. Thousands upon thousands, they had flowed along as
relentlessly, and seemingly as endlessly as a river. They were marching
yet. For six hours the thousands had poured up that street, making it a
moving mass of white. And the end was not yet. What pen, and tongue, and
sense of justice had failed to do, they were doing now by sheer, crude
force of numbers. The red-faced hooligan, who had stood next to Fanny
in the crowd hours before, had long ago ceased his jibes and slunk away,
bored, if not impressed. After all, one might jeer at ten, or fifty, or
a hundred women, or even five hundred. But not at forty thousand.

Their car turned down Madison Avenue, and Fenger twisted about for a
last look at the throng in the plaza. He was plainly impressed. The
magnitude of the thing appealed to him. To a Haynes-Cooper-trained
mind, forty thousand women, marching for whatever the cause, must
be impressive. Forty thousand of anything had the respect of Michael
Fenger. His eyes narrowed, thoughtfully.

"They seem to have put it over," he said. "And yet, what's the idea?
Oh, I'm for suffrage, of course. Naturally.