'We shall raise the condition of women,' she said. 'We shall give them a new status, increase the respect of men for them, increase their respect for themselves; besides, it will raise wages and that will help. We shall . . . we shall have better means of reform too.' 'What means?' 'When women have more sympathy.' 'Votes don't mean sympathy.' 'Well, intelligence then. Oh, Mrs Ferris, it's not that that matters; we're going to the root of it. We're going to make women equal to men, give them the same opportunities, the same rights. . . .' 'Yes, but will the vote increase their muscles? will it make them more logical, fitter to earn their living?' 'Of course it will,' said Miss Welkin acidly. 'Then how do you explain that several millions of men earn less than thirty shillings a week, and that at times hundreds of thousands are unemployed?' 'The vote does not mean everything,' said the suffragist reluctantly. 'It will merely ensure that we rise like the men when we are fit.' 'Well, Miss Welkin, I won't press that, but now, tell me, if women got the vote to-morrow, what would it do for my class?' 'It would raise. . . .' 'No, no, we can't wait to be raised. We've got to live, and if you "raise" us we lose our means of livelihood. How are you going to get to the root cause and lift us, not the next generation, at once out of the lower depths?' The suffragist's face contracted. 'Everything takes time,' she faltered. 'Just as I couldn't promise a charwoman that her hours would go down and her wages go up next day, I can't say that . . . of course your case is more difficult than any other, because . . . because. . . .' 'Because,' said Victoria coldly, 'I represent a social necessity. So long as your economic system is such that there is not work for the asking for every human being--work, mark you, fitted to strength and ability--so long on the other hand as there is such uncertainty as prevents men from marrying, so long as there is a leisured class who draw luxury from the labour of other men; so long will my class endure as it endured in Athens, in Rome, in Alexandria, as it does now from St John's Wood to Pekin.' There was a pause. Then Miss Welkin got up awkwardly. Victoria followed suit. 'There,' she said, 'you don't mind my being frank, do you? May I subscribe this sovereign to the funds of the branch? I do believe you are right, you know, even though I'm not sure the millennium is coming.' Miss Welkin looked doubtfully at the coin in her palm. 'Don't refuse it,' said Victoria, smiling, 'after all, you know, in politics there is no tainted money.' CHAPTER XIV