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 girl talked revolution--they all do. 'We women _intend_ to have equal rights with you!--whatever it cost. And when we have got them we shall begin to fashion the world as _we_ want it--and not as you men have kept it till now. _Gare a vous!_ You have enslaved us for ages--you may enslave us a good while yet--but the end is certain. There is a new age coming, and it will be the age of the free woman!'--That was the kind of thing. I daresay it sounds absurd to you--but as she put it--as she looked it--I can tell you, it was fine!" The small, work-worn hands of the Swedish lady shook on her knee. Her eyes seemed to hold the Englishman at bay. Then she added, in another tone. "Some people of course walked out, and afterwards there were many complaints from fathers of families that their daughters should have been exposed to such a thing. But it all passed over." "And the young lady went back to the forest?" "Yes,--for a time." "And what became of the black mare?" "Its mistress gave her to an inn-keeper here when she left. But the first time he went to see the horse in the stable, she trampled on him and he was laid up for weeks." "Like mistress, like mare?--Excuse the jest! But now, may I know the name of the prophetess?" "She was a Miss Blanchflower," said the Swedish lady, boggling a little over the name. "Her father had been a governor of one of your colonies." Winnington started forward in his chair.