Mentally he was wondering whether, if she knew who he was, she would attack him physically or insist upon writing in chalk all over his car. “I don’t want it for myself, because I shouldn’t know what to do with it, and I haven’t much time to find out. But I want fair play for women-workers generally, and if that is the only way to get it, I hope it will come quickly.” “What do you mean by fair play?” “Just whatever is fair play. I don’t think women ought to be making iron chains at Cradley Heath for a penny a yard, for instance, and that sort of thing. I think it is a slur on the men who govern the country that it is possible. If you were one of them, and drove about in this beautiful car, not caring twopence whether starving women were sweated or not, I should—” she hesitated. “Well, what should you—” Detecting the mysterious note in his voice, she added with mischievous, half-serious intent: “I should want to scratch you, and bite you, and push you into the first available ditch, for a poor coward, who was afraid to take care of the interests of woman, in case she got too well able in the end to take care of herself—so there.” He could not help laughing, and when he subsided she added: “I suppose you are one.” “Why do you suppose it?” “Never mind. Are you?” “You promise you won’t scratch me and bite me?” “I’ll give you a sporting chance to run away.” “I’m not very likely to run away from you, I think.” They had reached the well-lit roads now, and he turned and looked keenly into her face, partly to see if by chance he might recognise her, and partly to get a cleaner idea of her appearance. “You look too nice to be a suffragette,” he said. “Such rot! Do I look too nice to care whether working women and outcast women are fairly treated or not?” “That’s only the bluff of the movement. What they really want is power and notoriety.” Hal tossed her head. “You’re a positive worm,” she told him frankly. Again his engaging laugh rang out. “That’s a nice thing to say to a man who has brought you all the way from Millington to London, and helped you out of a tight corner.” The white teeth gleamed suddenly. “I’ll qualify it if you like, and call you a cross between a worm and a brick.” “Not good enough. I won’t pass the worm at all. If you don’t retract it wholly I shall put you down at the first tram, and let you get back to Bloomsbury on your own.” “I’ll retract, if you’ll tell me who you are.” “I’ll tell you afterwards.” She shook her head. “Perhaps you are going to Downing Street even now, to plan a crushing blow to the Cause.” “I am going to Downing Street, but it has nothing to do with the Cause, as you call it.” It was her turn to glance round, but she only saw that he was clean-shaven, and somewhat lined. His grey, quizzical eyes met hers full of humour. “I wonder who we both are?” he said.