A gentleman who had vainly been trying to get her to hear him, again asked something in a hesitating way, stumbling and going back to recast the form of his question. He was evidently quite in earnest, but either unaccustomed to the sound of his own voice or unnerved to find himself bandying words in Hyde Park with a Suffragette. So when he stuck fast in the act of fashioning his phrases, Miss Claxton bent in the direction whence the voice issued, and said, briskly obliging-- 'You needn't go on. I know the rest. What this gentleman is trying to ask is----' And although no denial on his part reached the public ear, it was not hard to imagine him seething with indignation, down there helpless in his crowded corner, while the facile speaker propounded as well as demolished his objection to her and all her works. 'Yes; one last question. Let us have it.' 'How can you pretend that women want the vote? Why, there are hardly any here.' 'More women would join us openly but for fear of their fellow-cowards. Thousands upon thousands of women feel a sympathy with this movement they dare not show.' 'Lots of women don't want the vote.' 'What women don't want it? Are you worrying about a handful who think because they have been trained to like subservience everybody else ought to like subservience, too? The very existence of a movement like this is a thorn in their sleek sides. We are a reproach and a menace to such women. But this isn't a movement to compel anybody to vote. It is to give the right to those who _do_ want it--to those signatories of the second largest petition ever laid on the table of the House of Commons--to the 96,000 textile workers--to the women who went last month in deputation to the Prime Minister, and who represented over half a million belonging to Trades Unions and organized societies. To--perhaps more than all, to the unorganized women, those whose voices are never heard in public. _They_, as Mrs. Bewley told you--they are beginning to want it. The women who are made to work over hours--_they_ want the vote. To compel them to work over hours is illegal. But who troubles to see that laws are fairly interpreted for the unrepresented? I know a factory where a notice went up yesterday to say that the women employed there will be required to work twelve hours a day for the next few weeks. Instead of starting at eight, they must begin at six, and work till seven. The hours in this particular case are illegal--as the employer will find out!' she threw in with a flash, and one saw by that illumination the avenue through which his enlightenment would come. 'But in many shops where women work, twelve hours a day is legal. Much of women's employment is absolutely unrestricted, except that they may not be worked on Sunday. And while all that is going on, comfortable gentlemen sit in armchairs and write alarmist articles about the falling birth-rate and the horrible amount of infant mortality. A Government