"Exactly. That proves it," retorted the man, who had fought in real wars. "They wouldn't bring out six thousand police to arrest thirteen men, even if they all threw bombs, as your wife here would like to see." "The police are not there only to arrest the women----" "That's the whole point," was the prompt reply. "You've got to smash an idea as well as an army in every war, still more in every revolution, which is always fought exclusively round an idea. If thirteen women batter at the gates of the House of Commons, you don't smash the idea by arresting the thirteen women, which could be done in five minutes. So you bring out six thousand police to see if that will do it. That is what lies behind the mud and the slush--the idea you can't smash." A man reeled along the pavement and lurched up against them. "Women in trousers! What's the country coming to?" he babbled; and bystanders laughed hysterically. "Come along; let's get out of this," said the woman's husband hurriedly; and the trio went off in the direction of the hotel. The woman with the passionless eyes looked after them. "He sees what we see," she murmured. "Seems he's been in the army, active service, too," remarked the artisan in a sociable manner. "I like the way he conversed, myself." "He understands, that is all," explained his companion. "He sees what it all means--all this, I mean, that the ordinary person calls a failure because we don't succeed in getting into the House. Do you remember, in 'Agamemnon'--have you read 'Agamemnon'?" It did not strike her as strange that she should be clasping iron railings in Westminster, late on a wet evening, talking to a working-man about Greek tragedy. The new world she was treading to-night, in which things that mattered were given their true proportions, and important scruples of a lifetime dwindled to nothingness, gave her a fresh and a whimsical insight into everything that happened; and the odd companion that chance had flung her, half an hour ago, became quite easily the friend she wanted at the most friendless moment she had ever known. The man, without sharing her reasons for a display of unusual perception, seemed equally unaware of any strangeness in the situation. "No, miss, I haven't read it," he answered. "That's Greek mythology, isn't it? I never learnt to speak Greek."