“I don’t care. It is a reflection on those savages.” “I suppose you don’t want to be too conspicuous when you are out to burn houses!” This was sound sense, and they halted that day within a mile or two of Horsham and let Eve go on alone to buy two new blouses. The transfiguration was contrived in the corner of a wood, and the egg-stained relics were rolled up and stowed away in their knapsacks. Apparently they were expected at Horsham, not by the public or the police, but by the elderly gentlewoman at whose front door Joan Gaunt knocked. They were received with enthusiasm by an excitable lady with a high, narrow forehead and prominent teeth. She could talk nearly as fast as Lizzie Straker, and she gave them a most excellent tea. “I think it is splendid, perfectly splendid, this heroic uprising of the women of England. The Government can’t stop us. How can they stop us? We have got the men stalemated.” Eve did not take to her hostess, and their hostess did not take to Eve. She looked at her with the veiled prejudices of a very plain woman for a girl who had more than good looks. Moreover, Eve had recovered her sense of humour, and these enthusiasts were rendered suspicious and uneasy by a glimmer of fun in the eyes. People who could laugh were not vindictively and properly in earnest. “They can’t stop us. They can’t crush women who are not afraid of dying! Isn’t it glorious the way those noble girls have fought and refused to eat in prison? I know one woman who kept four wardresses at bay for half an hour. She kicked and struggled, and they had to give up trying to feed her. What fools we are making the men look! I feel I want to laugh in the faces of all the men I meet!” Eve asked mildly: “And do you?” “Do what?” “Laugh when you meet them?” “Well, no, not quite. It wouldn’t be dignified, would it? But I think they see the triumph in my eyes.” Their hostess had forgotten that a letter had come for Joan Gaunt, and she only remembered it when Joan asked if it had arrived. “Of course—how silly of me! I locked it up in my bureau. I was so fascinated listening to all your adventures.” She fetched the letter, and Joan Gaunt read it. She smiled her leathery smile, and passed the letter over to Lizzie Straker. “To-morrow night, where the road to Godalming branches off from the Horsham-Guildford road.” The hostess thrilled and upset her cup. “How exciting—how splendid! I can guess, yes, what you are going to do. And you will be able to stay the night here? How nice. The people here are such barbarians; so narrow. I try to spread the great ideal, but they don’t seem to care.” At all events she treated them nobly, and Eve was able to enjoy the sensuous delight of a good hot bath. She went to bed early, leaving her hostess and the two pioneers of progress sitting well forward in their chairs, and debating the conversion of those women who clung sentimentally to the old traditions. Their hostess was curious about Eve.