But Mary cut her short.
“We don’t allow shop at tea, Sally,” she said firmly. “We fine her a penny each time she forgets, and the fines go to buying a plum cake,” she explained, seeking to draw Katharine into the community. She had given up all hope of impressing her.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Mrs. Seal apologized. “It’s my misfortune to be an enthusiast,” she said, turning to Katharine. “My father’s daughter could hardly be anything else. I think I’ve been on as many committees as most people. Waifs and Strays, Rescue Work, Church Work, C.O.S.—local branch—besides the usual civic duties which fall to one as a householder. But I’ve given them all up for our work here, and I don’t regret it for a second,” she added. “This is the root question, I feel; until women have votes—”
“It’ll be sixpence, at least, Sally,” said Mary, bringing her fist down on the table. “And we’re all sick to death of women and their votes.”
Mrs. Seal looked for a moment as though she could hardly believe her ears, and made a deprecating “tut-tut-tut” in her throat, looking alternately at Katharine and Mary, and shaking her head as she did so. Then she remarked, rather confidentially to Katharine, with a little nod in Mary’s direction:
“She’s doing more for the cause than any of us. She’s giving her youth—for, alas! when I was young there were domestic circumstances—” she sighed, and stopped short.
Mr. Clacton hastily reverted to the joke about luncheon, and explained how Mrs. Seal fed on a bag of biscuits under the trees, whatever the weather might be, rather, Katharine thought, as though Mrs. Seal were a pet dog who had convenient tricks.
“Yes, I took my little bag into the square,” said Mrs. Seal, with the self-conscious guilt of a child owning some fault to its elders. “It was really very sustaining, and the bare boughs against the sky do one so much good. But I shall have to give up going into the square,” she proceeded, wrinkling her forehead. “The injustice of it! Why should I have a beautiful square all to myself, when poor women who need rest have nowhere at all to sit?” She looked fiercely at Katharine, giving her short locks a little shake. “It’s dreadful what a tyrant one still is, in spite of all one’s efforts. One tries to lead a decent life, but one can’t. Of course, directly one thinks of it, one sees that all squares should be open to every one. Is there any society with that object, Mr. Clacton? If not, there should be, surely.”
“A most excellent object,” said Mr. Clacton in his professional manner. “At the same time, one must deplore the ramification of organizations, Mrs. Seal. So much excellent effort thrown away, not to speak of pounds, shillings, and pence. Now how many organizations of a philanthropic nature do you suppose there are in the City of London itself, Miss Hilbery?” he added, screwing his mouth into a queer little smile, as if to show that the question had its frivolous side.
Katharine smiled, too. Her unlikeness to the rest of them had, by this time, penetrated to Mr. Clacton, who was not naturally observant, and he was wondering who she was; this same unlikeness had subtly stimulated Mrs. Seal to try and make a convert of her. Mary, too, looked at her almost as if she begged her to make things easy. For Katharine had shown no disposition to make things easy. She had scarcely spoken, and her silence, though grave and even thoughtful, seemed to Mary the silence of one who criticizes.
“Well, there are more in this house than I’d any notion of,” she said. “On the ground floor you protect natives, on the next you emigrate women and tell people to eat nuts—”
“Why do you say that ‘we’ do these things?” Mary interposed, rather sharply. “We’re not responsible for all the cranks who choose to lodge in the same house with us.”
Mr. Clacton cleared his throat and looked at each of the young ladies in turn. He was a good deal struck by the appearance and manner of Miss Hilbery, which seemed to him to place her among those cultivated and luxurious people of whom he used to dream. Mary, on the other hand, was more of his own sort, and a little too much inclined to order him about. He picked up crumbs of dry biscuit and put them into his mouth with incredible rapidity.
“You don’t belong to our society, then?” said Mrs. Seal.
“No, I’m afraid I don’t,” said Katharine, with such ready candor that Mrs. Seal was nonplussed, and stared at her with a puzzled expression, as if she could not classify her among the varieties of human beings known to her.
“But surely “ she began.
“Mrs. Seal is an enthusiast in these matters,” said Mr. Clacton, almost apologetically. “We have to remind her sometimes that others have a right to their views even if they differ from our own…. “Punch” has a very funny picture this week, about a Suffragist and an agricultural laborer. Have you seen this week’s “Punch,” Miss Datchet?”
Mary laughed, and said “No.”
Mr. Clacton then told them the substance of the joke, which, however, depended a good deal for its success upon the expression which the artist had put into the people’s faces. Mrs. Seal sat all the time perfectly grave. Directly he had done speaking she burst out:
“But surely, if you care about the welfare of your sex at all, you must wish them to have the vote?”
“I never said I didn’t wish them to have the vote,” Katharine protested.
“Then why aren’t you a member of our society?” Mrs. Seal demanded.
Katharine stirred her spoon round and round, stared into the swirl of the tea, and remained silent. Mr. Clacton, meanwhile, framed a question which, after a moment’s hesitation, he put to Katharine.
“Are you in any way related, I wonder, to the poet Alardyce? His daughter, I believe, married a Mr. Hilbery.”
“Yes; I’m the poet’s granddaughter,” said Katharine, with a little sigh, after a pause; and for a moment they were all silent.
“The poet’s granddaughter!” Mrs. Seal repeated, half to herself, with a shake of her head, as if that explained what was otherwise inexplicable.
The light kindled in Mr. Clacton’s eye.
“Ah, indeed. That interests me very much,” he said. “I owe a great debt to your grandfather, Miss Hilbery. At one time I could have repeated the greater part of him by heart. But one gets out of the way of reading poetry, unfortunately. You don’t remember him, I suppose?”
A sharp rap at the door made Katharine’s answer inaudible. Mrs. Seal looked up with renewed hope in her eyes, and exclaiming:
“The proofs at last!” ran to open the door. “Oh, it’s only Mr. Denham!” she cried, without any attempt to conceal her disappointment. Ralph, Katharine supposed, was a frequent visitor, for the only person he thought it necessary to greet was herself, and Mary at once explained the strange fact of her being there by saying:
“Katharine has come to see how one runs an office.”
Ralph felt himself stiffen uncomfortably, as he said:
“I hope Mary hasn’t persuaded you that she knows how to run an office?”
“What, doesn’t she?” said Katharine, looking from one to the other.
At these remarks Mrs. Seal began to exhibit signs of discomposure, which displayed themselves by a tossing movement of her head, and, as Ralph took a letter from his pocket, and placed his finger upon a certain sentence, she forestalled him by exclaiming in confusion:
“Now, I know what you’re going to say, Mr. Denham! But it was the day Kit Markham was here, and she upsets one so—with her wonderful