The little dowdy woman threw up her hands.

Her neighbour's face shewed that the story interested and amused him.

"A Valkyrie, indeed! But how a feminist?"

"You shall hear. One evening she offered to give an address at the
hotel on 'Women and the Future.' She was already of course regarded as
half mad, and her opinions were well known. Some people objected, and
spoke to the manager. Her father, it was said, tried to stop it, but
she got her own way with him. And the manager finally decided that the
advertisement would be greater than the risk. When the evening came the
place was _bonde_; people came from every inn and pension round for
miles. She spoke beautiful German, she had learnt it from a German
governess who had brought her up, and been a second mother to her; and
she hadn't a particle of _mauvaise honte_. Somebody had draped some
Austrian and English flags behind her. The South Germans and Viennese,
and Hungarians who came to listen--just the same kind of people who are
here to-night--could hardly keep themselves on their chairs. The men
laughed and stared--I heard a few brutalities--but they couldn't keep
their eyes off her, and in the end they cheered her. Most of the women
were shocked, and wished they hadn't come, or let their girls come. And
the girls themselves sat open-mouthed--drinking it in."

"Amazing!" laughed the Englishman. "Wish I had been there! Was it an
onslaught upon men?"

"Of course," said his companion coolly. "What else could it be? At
present you men are the gaolers, and we the prisoners in revolt. This