With an amiable smile the suffragette allowed her hand to be shaken an enormous number of times. She was looking plainer than the gardener had expected. With the pretty obtuseness of men, he had in his dreams forgotten that brown hat with the weary flowers in it. He had imagined her dressed in blue, he had thought her eyes were blue to match, he had created a little curl in her hair. Yet somehow he was not disappointed. For he had also forgotten in his dreams the comfort that lies in lack of ornament. It isn’t love that makes the world go round, it’s the optimism of men. “Why, it’s quite nice to see you again,” said the suffragette in a voice of surprise. “Courtesy,” shouted the gardener, “from this moment I’m not a fit companion for Mrs. Rust. Courtesy says I’m not respectable when I’m with you,” he added to the suffragette. “I don’t see anything very disreputable in your behaviour with me,” she replied. “But it’s only for a little while, Courtesy.” “Oh, Lor’, no,” said Courtesy. “He’s come to stop.” “I haven’t,” said the suffragette. The gardener would never have put into words the appeal that came into his eyes. “Yes,” said the suffragette, “you are thinking that I am growing more and more militant every time you see me.” “I was not,” he answered, “I was wondering how I could manage to see you apart from all this noise.” “Quite easily. You can walk back to Park View with me now. I have got the oranges for Albert.” So they squeezed out of the market-place, and side by side paced the avenue of donkeys which on market days lines the village street. “What are you waiting for?” asked the gardener. “What’s wrong with me? When will you want me?” “It isn’t you I don’t want. It’s what you stand for. Possibly I haven’t mentioned to you that I am a suffragette of a special kind. A cat that walks by itself.... Or rather perhaps it is presumptuous of me to lay claim to cathood. I have only walked such a little way. I am an elderly kitten, say, walking by itself.” “But if all suffragettes were like you, it would certainly be an argument against the franchise. For what would become of England?” “God forbid that all suffragettes should be like me. I am a fanatic, a rather silly thing to be.” “I know what you are waiting for,” said the gardener. “Heaven! you want so much beside the Vote, and you’ll never get what you want this side of heaven.” “God forbid that I should want heaven,” said the suffragette. “Heaven is not made for women. Why, the very archangels are men.” “Why won’t you have me? We could get married to-morrow. Why not?”