“And now,” said Rosamund at length, “I have a question to put to you.”
“Well?”
“I don’t want a definite answer here and now.” She looked round disdainfully at the foyer. “But I do want to set your mind on the right track at the earliest possible moment—before any accidents occur.” She smiled satirically. “You see how frank I am with you. I’ll be more frank still, and tell you that I came to this concert to-night specially to see you.”
“Did you?” Audrey murmured. “Well!”
The older woman looked down upon her from a superior height. Her eyes were those of an autocrat. It was quite possible to see in them the born leader who had dominated thousands of women and played a drawn game with the British Government itself. But Audrey, at the very moment when she was feeling the overbearing magic of that gaze, happened to remember the scene in Madame Piriac’s automobile on the night of her first arrival in Paris, when she herself was asleep and Rosamund, not knowing that she was asleep, had been solemnly addressing her. Miss Ingate’s often repeated account of the scene always made her laugh, and the memory of it now caused her to smile faintly.
“I want to suggest to you,” Rosamund proceeded, “that you begin to work for me.”
“For the suffrage—or for you?”
“It is the same thing,” said Rosamund coldly. “I am the suffrage. Without me the cause would not have existed to-day.”
“Well,” said Audrey, “of course I will. I have done a bit already, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” Rosamund admitted. “You did very well at the Blue City. That’s why I’m approaching you. That’s why I’ve chosen you.”