"Frightened, like all the rest!" she said. "They say I'm responsible for hundreds of broken engagements! They made the law themselves, and now, when they see it in operation, they squeal." It came over me then; Poppy's strained eyes, and her painting without a cigarette, and Basil looking so queer. "Then Viv----" "Viv is in jail, my dear," she said. "Men made the law, of course, but I wish you'd hear them! The Husband's Liability Act, child. A married woman's husband is responsible for her debts. I refused to pay my income tax as taxation without representation. Viv got stubborn, and said _he_ wouldn't. Result, the entire male population screaming for help, engaged men breaking with Suffragist fiancées, the population prospects of the country poor, and--Viv in jail!" I could hardly speak for a minute. "That--that's what is wrong with Basil?" "Of course I'm sorry, Maggie. You see, you have an income of your own and at any moment, by refusing to pay the tax on it, you can send Basil to jail." "If he were any sort of a husband," I said furiously, "he could pay the tax and save all the trouble." "Not at all. The men have banded together. They call it the Husband's Defence! They take turns at visiting Viv, and sending him books and things. It's--it's maddening." Poppy asked me to stay with her. She was really in a bad way. She wasn't eating or sleeping, and that very night a crowd of men gathered in front of the house, and hissed and called her things. One of them made a speech. We listened from behind the curtains. He said his wife was holding out her taxes on him and he expected to "go up" the next day. Poppy went out on the balcony and tried to tell them why she had done it, and that it was a matter of principle, and all that. But they would not listen, and only jeered. She came back into the drawing room quite beaten, and covered her face with her hands. It was the next evening that Basil told us that Vivian, feeling as he did that he represented the married men of the Kingdom and that he stood for principle also, had gone on a hunger strike! * * * * * After all, it was Daphne who came to the rescue. She came over to luncheon the day after and found Poppy in bed with cold cloths on her head, and her wedding ring off. Daphne sniffed. "You and Viv are two children," she said. "You're a silly for thinking you can beat the government at its own game, which is taxation, and Viv's a fool for letting you be one." Poppy is not placid of disposition, and she flung the cold cloths at Daphne and ordered her out. But Daphne only wrung out the cloths and hung them up, and raised the shades. "You haven't got a headache; you have a pain in your disposition," she said. "Put this on again." And Poppy put on her wedding ring.