Poppy's hair is the softest, straightest hair you ever saw, and her nose is short and childish. Her eyes are soft, too, and her profile is so helpless that the bobbies help her across the streets. But her full face is full of character. "Was he in front of me?" she demanded. "At the side." We both understood. It was her profile again. She fell back in her chair and sighed. "If you could address the House of Lords in profile," I said, "you'd get the vote." "That's rot, you know," she retorted. But she coloured. She knew and she knew I knew that her new photographs were profile ones. And we both knew, too, that they were taken because Vivian Harcourt had demanded a picture. "You're not doing the right thing, Poppy," I accused her. "For one day in the week that Viv sees you, there are six days for him to look at that picture." "He isn't obliged to look at it at all." "So long as women beg the question like that," I said severely, "just so long do they postpone serious consideration for the Cause." She leaned back and laughed--rather rudely. The English can be very rude sometimes. They call it frankness. "The ridiculous thing about you is that you don't know anything about the Cause," she said. "With you, it's a fad. It's the only thing you can't have, so you want it, little Madge. With some of us it's--well, I can't talk about it." It made me furious. The idea of dedicating your life to a thing, and then being accused---- "I think enough of the Cause to stand out all day in a broiling sun," I snapped, "and be burnt to a cinder. Didn't I pass out your wretched literature for hours and make six shillings?" "Don't call it wretched literature," she said gently. "But--now think a minute. If it came to a showdown--your own expression, isn't it--a question between one of these men who are so mad about you, Basil or any of the others--and the Cause, which would it be?" "Both," I replied promptly. She laughed again. "You delightful little hypocrite!" she cried. "A Compromise, then! Not victory, but a truce! Oh, martyr to the Cause!" "And you?" "The Cause," she said, and turned, fullface to me. Well, of course that was Poppy's affair. I believe in living up to one's conviction, and all that. But when you think of the lengths to which she carried her conviction, and the horrible situation that developed, it seems an exceedingly selfish theory of life. I believe in diplomatic compromise. (I wrote the whole conversation that night to father, and he cabled a reply. He generally cables, being very busy. He said, "Life is a series of compromises. Who is Basil?")