of well-to-do, educated women, who were ready--it seemed--to do
anything outrageous--just for a vote! "Of course nobody would mind if
the rich women--the tax-paying women--had a vote--help us Tories
famously. But the women of the working-classes--why, Good Lord, look at
them when there's any disturbance on--any big strike--look at
Tonypandy!--a deal sight worse than the men! Give them the vote and
they'd take us to the devil, even quicker than Lloyd George!"

Aloud he said--

"Do you know anything about that lady Miss Blanchflower had with her?
She introduced me. Miss Marvell--I think that was the name. I thought I
had heard it somewhere."

The solicitor lifted his eyebrows.

"I daresay. She was in the stone-throwing raid last August. Fined 20s.
or a month, for damage in Pall Mall. She was in prison a week; then
somebody paid her fine. She professed great annoyance, but one of the
police told me it was privately paid by her own society. She's too
important to them--they can't do without her. An extremely clever
woman."

"Then what on earth does she come and bury herself down here for?"
cried the Captain.

Masham shewed a meditative twist of the lip.

"Can't say, I'm sure. But they want money. And Miss Blanchflower is an
important capture."