Perhaps Miss Claxton thought the agreement lacked conviction, for she went on with a harsh hostility that seemed almost personal-- 'We'd rather any day be handled by the police than by the self-constituted stewards of political meetings.' Partly the words, even more the look in the darkening face, made Miss Levering say-- 'That brings me to something else I wanted to be enlightened about. One reason I wrote to ask for a little talk with _you_ specially, was because I couldn't imagine your doing anything so futile as to pit your physical strength--considerable as it may be--but to pit your muscle against men's is merely absurd. And I, when I saw how intelligent you were, I saw that you know all that quite as well as I. Why, then, carry a whip?' The lowered eyelids of the face opposite quivered faintly. 'You couldn't think it would save you from arrest.' 'No, not from arrest.' The woman's mouth hardened. 'I know'--Miss Levering bridged the embarrassment of the pause--'I know there must be some rational explanation.' But if there were it was not forthcoming. 'So you see your most indefensible and even futile-appearing action gave the cue for my greatest interest,' said Vida, with a mixture of anxiety and bluntness. 'For just the woman you were, to do so brainless a thing--what was behind? That was what I kept asking myself.' 'It--isn't--only--_rough_ treatment one or two of us have met'--she pulled out the words slowly--'it's sometimes worse.' They both waited in a curious chill embarrassment. 'Not the police, but the stewards at political meetings, and the men who volunteer to "keep the women in order," they'--she raised her fierce eyes and the colour rose in her cheeks--'as they're turning us out they punish us in ways the public don't know.' She saw the shrinking wonder in the woman opposite, and she did not spare her. 'They punish us by underhand maltreatment--of the kind most intolerable to a decent woman.' 'Oh, no, no!' The other face was a flame to match. 'Yes!' She flung it out like a poisoned arrow. 'How _dare_ they!' said Vida in a whisper. 'They know we dare not complain.' 'Why not?' A duller red overspread the face as the woman muttered, 'Nobody, no woman, wants to talk about it. And if we did they'd only say, "See! you're killing chivalry." _Chivalry!_' She laughed. It was not good to hear a laugh like that. The figure on the sofa winced. 'I assure you people don't know,' said Vida. 'It's known well enough to those who've had to suffer it, and it's known to the brutes of men who----' 'Ah, but you _must_ realize'--Miss Levering jumped to her feet--'you must admit that the great mass of men would be indignant if they knew.' 'You think so?' The question was insulting in its air of forbearance with a fairy-tale view of life. 'Think so? I _know_ it. I should be sorry for my own powers of judgment if I believed the majority of men were like the worst specimens--like those you----'