Lady Harman reached Miss Alimony’s flat at half-past three in the afternoon. She had lunched rather belatedly and uncomfortably in the Waterloo Refreshment Room and she had found out that Miss Alimony was at home through the telephone. “I want to see you urgently,” she said, and Miss Alimony received her in that spirit. She was hatless but she had a great cloud of dark fuzzy hair above the grey profundity of her eyes and she wore an artistic tea-gown that in spite of a certain looseness at neck and sleeve emphasized the fine lines of her admirable figure. Her flat was furnished chiefly with books and rich oriental hangings and vast cushions and great bowls of scented flowers. On the mantel-shelf was the crystal that amused her lighter moments and above it hung a circular allegory by Florence Swinstead, very rich in colour, the Awakening of Woman, in a heavy gold frame. Miss Alimony conducted her guest to an armchair, knelt flexibly on the hearthrug before her, took up a small and elegant poker with a brass handle and a spear-shaped service end of iron and poked the fire. The service end came out from the handle and fell into the grate. “It always does that,” said Miss Alimony charmingly. “But never mind.” She warmed both hands at the blaze. “Tell me all about it,” she said, softly. Lady Harman felt she would rather have been told all about it. But perhaps that would follow. “You see,” she said, “I find——My married life——” She halted. It _was_ very difficult to tell. “Everyone,” said Agatha, giving a fine firelit profile, and remaining gravely thoughtful through a little pause. “Do you mind,” she asked abruptly, “if I smoke?” When she had completed her effect with a delicately flavoured cigarette, she encouraged Lady Harman to proceed. This Lady Harman did in a manner do. She said her husband left her no freedom of mind or movement, gave her no possession of herself, wanted to control her reading and thinking. “He insists——” she said. “Yes,” said Miss Agatha sternly blowing aside her cigarette smoke. “They all insist.” “He insists,” said Lady Harman, “on seeing all my letters, choosing all my friends. I have no control over my house or my servants, no money except what he gives me.” “In fact you are property.” “I’m simply property.” “A harem of one. And all _that_ is within the provisions of the law!” “How any woman can marry!” said Miss Agatha, after a little interval. “I sometimes think that is where the true strike of the sex ought to begin. If none of us married! If we said all of us, ‘No,—definitely—we refuse this bargain! It is a man-made contract. We have had no voice in it. We decline.’ Perhaps it will come to that. And I knew that you, you with that quiet beautiful penetration in your eyes would come to see it like that. The first task, after the vote is won, will be the revision of that contract. The very first task of our Women Statesmen....”