e Egoist was obscure, and when she spoke every one
else stopped talking and listened. Then they deliberated whether Bernard
Shaw ought to go into Parliament. And that brought them to vegetarianism
and teetotalism, and the young man in the orange tie and Mrs. Goopes
had a great set-to about the sincerity of Chesterton and Belloc that was
ended by Goopes showing signs of resuming the Socratic method.

And at last Ann Veronica and Miss Miniver came down the dark staircase
and out into the foggy spaces of the London squares, and crossed Russell
Square, Woburn Square, Gordon Square, making an oblique route to Ann
Veronica's lodging. They trudged along a little hungry, because of the
fruitarian refreshments, and mentally very active. And Miss Miniver fell
discussing whether Goopes or Bernard Shaw or Tolstoy or Doctor Tumpany
or Wilkins the author had the more powerful and perfect mind in
existence at the present time. She was clear there were no other minds
like them in all the world.

Part 4

Then one evening Ann Veronica went with Miss Miniver into the back seats
of the gallery at Essex Hall, and heard and saw the giant leaders of the
Fabian Society who are re-making the world: Bernard Shaw and Toomer and
Doctor Tumpany and Wilkins the author, all displayed upon a platform.
The place was crowded, and the people about her were almost equally
made up of very good-looking and enthusiastic young people and a great
variety of Goopes-like types. In the discussion there was the oddest
mixture of things that were personal and petty with an idealist devotion
that was fine beyond dispute. In nearly every speech she heard was the
same implication of great and necessary changes in the world--changes
to be won by effort and sacrifice indeed, but surely to be won. And
afterward she saw a very much larger and more enthusiastic gathering,
a meeting of the advanced section of the woman movement in Caxton Hall,
where the same note of vast changes in progress sounded; and she went
to a soiree of the Dress Reform Association and visited a Food Reform
Exhibition, where imminent change was made even alarmingly visible.
The women's meeting was much more charged with emotional force than the
Socialists'. Ann Veronica was carried off her intellectual and critical
feet by it altogether, and applauded and uttered cries that subsequent
reflection failed to endorse. "I knew you would feel it," said Miss
Miniver, as they came away flushed and he