With excellent intentions the suffragette had, I think, succeeded in killing her heart. She was so heartless that even the hole where her heart should have been was a very shallow one. Some rudimentary emotion turned in her breast as she walked up the drive, and if she could have had the gardener as a friend, she would have turned even then and tendered him the friendly mailed fist of the independent woman. But if one is a fanatic, one cannot also be a lover. She suffered from the cold humility that sometimes attacks women. Every morning she occupied three minutes in the thankless task of pinning her hair into a shape conformable with convention’s barest requirements, and was then confronted with her own thin short face, white—but not white like a flower as the face of a beloved woman should be; her small eyes, grey—but not grey like the sea; her straight and drooping hair, made out of the ashes of the flame that burns in real women’s hair; her thin pressed lips, her hard set chin, the little defiant wrinkles over her brows.... It was impossible for her to believe that such a thing could be indispensable to any eyes. Her attitude towards the paradox was always sceptical, and the idea that there is nothing a woman can offer as a substitute for such a small gift as herself was beyond her. The little ordinary fiery things of youth had been shorn out of her life, she had been crushed by the responsibility of being a woman and a devotee. No man would believe that such a woman exists. The pathetic vanity of man would never be convinced that any woman could prefer her own independence to his kisses. By the time the suffragette had reached the front door of Park View, the interview with the gardener was but a pulse beating at the back of her mind. Miss Brown, looking as nearly dishevelled as a persistently Real Lady could possibly look, was standing in the hall, ankle-deep in her own prostrate property. Trunks yawned on every side, highly respectable dresses, like limp ghosts of Miss Brown herself, embellished every chair. “And I haven’t even begun on Albert’s books yet.” “The more of Albert’s books we leave behind the better,” replied the suffragette. “I have got him _Treasure Island_ to read on the boat, and he might take that one on Chemistry for Sundays.” “I’m sure I don’t know how you manage Albert,” said Miss Brown. “I could never even get him to read the Bible. It really looks as if Providence had sent you to us at this crisis.” “Providence would never have chosen a militant suffragette.” “Well, but really one wouldn’t notice your opinions,” said Miss Brown in an encouraging voice. “What about Scottie?” asked the suffragette. “Has anybody thought what is going to happen to him?” “I haven’t thought of any details,” answered Miss Brown. “The doctor’s orders were so sudden, they altogether upset me. I suppose Scottie can be left with John.”