"She's been going out with Lilli Vergoe," interrupted Elsie sneeringly. "Jenny Pearl's turned into a suffragette."
"What of it? You and your six pairs of gloves that your Willie bought you. Well, if he did, which I don't think, he must have broke open the till to do it."
Madge Wilson's disloyalty effected for Jenny what nothing else had done. It made the blood course fast, the heart beat: it kindled her eyes again. That night in bed, she thought of falseness and treachery and cried herself to sleep.
Chapter XXVI: In Scyros
THE outburst against feminine treachery had an effect upon Jenny's state of mind beyond the mere evoking of tears. These were followed by a general agitation of her point of view necessitating an outlet for her revived susceptibleness to emotion. A less sincere heart would have been caught on the rebound; but she and men were still mutually unattractive. The consequence of this renewed activity of spirit, in the aspect of its immediate cause, was paradoxical enough; for when Jenny thought she would try the pretensions of suffragism, no clear process of reasoning helped her to such a resolve, no formulated hostility to man. Whatever logic existed in the decision was fortuitous; nor did she at all perceive any absence of logic in throwing in her lot with treacherous woman.
Lilli Vergoe was proud of such a catechumen, and made haste to introduce her to the tall house in Mecklenburg Square, whose elm-shadowed rooms displayed the sober glories of the Women's Political, Social and Economic League. Something about the house reminded Jenny of her first visit to Madame Aldavini's School; but she found Miss Bailey less alarming than the dancing mistress as, rising from masses of letters and scarlet gladioli, she welcomed the candidate. Miss Bailey, the president of the League, was a tall, handsome woman, very unlike Jenny's conception of a suffragette. She had a regular profile, a thin, high-bridged nose, and clearly cut, determined lips. Her complexion was pale, her hair very brown and rich. Best of all Jenny liked her slim hands and the voice which, though marred by a slight huskiness due to public speaking, was full of quality and resonance. She was one of those women who, carrying in their presence a fine tranquillity at once kindly and ascetic, imbue the onlooker with their long and perceptive experience of humanity. She was in no sense homely or motherly; indeed, she wore about her the remoteness of the great. Yet whatever in her general appearance seemed of marble was vivified by clear hazel eyes into the reality of womanhood.
"And so you're going to join our club?" inquired Miss Bailey.
Jenny, although she had intended this first visit to be merely empirical, felt bound to commit herself to the affirmative.
"You'll soon know all about our objects."
"Oh, I've told her a lot already, Miss Bailey," declared Lilli with the eagerness of the trusted school-girl.