“I’m sure, my dear, that you will have formed a very good guess as to what it means,” he said. “Tell me what you think.”
“Well, if you care to know,” said she, “I think it all points to there being some demonstration planned, and I for one should not be surprised if I looked out of the window some morning, and saw Mrs. Ames and Mrs. Brooks and the rest of them marching down the High Street with ribands and banners. They’ve been keeping very quiet about it all, at least not a word of what they’ve been doing has come to my ears, and I consider that’s a proof that something is going on and that they want to keep it secret.”
Mr. Altham’s legal mind cried out to him to put in the plea that a complete absence of news does not necessarily constitute a proof that exciting events are occurring, but he rightly considered that such logic might be taken to be a sign of continued “contrariness.” So he gave an illogical assent to his wife’s theory.
“Certainly it is odd that nothing more has been heard of it all,” he said. “I wonder what they are planning. The election coming on so soon, too! Can they be planning anything in connection with that?”
Mrs. Altham got up, letting her napkin fall on the floor.
“Henry, I believe you have hit it,” she said. “Now what can it be? Let us go into the drawing-room, and thresh it out.”
But the best threshing-machines in the world cannot successfully fulfil their function unless there is some material to work upon; they can but show by their whirling wheels and rattling gear that they are capable of threshing should anything be provided for them. The poor Althams were somewhat in this position, for their rations of gossip were sadly reduced, their two chief sources being cut off from them. For ever since the mendacious Mrs. Brooks had appeared as Cleopatra, when she had as good as promised to be Hermione, chill politeness had taken the place of intimacy between the two houses, since there was no telling what trick she might not play next, while the very decided line which Mrs. Altham had taken when she found she was expected to meet people like tradesmen’s wives had caused a complete rupture in relations with the Ames’. That Suffragette meetings were going on was certain, else what sane mind could account for the fact that only to-day a perfect stream of people, some of them not even known by sight to Mrs. Altham, and therefore probably of the very lowest origin, with Mrs. Ames and the wife of the station-master among them, had been seen coming out of Mr. Turner’s warehouse. It was ridiculous “to tell me” that they had been all making purchases (nobody had told her), and such a supposition was thoroughly negatived by the subsequent discovery that the warehouse in question contained only a quantity of chairs. All this, however, had been threshed out at tea-time, and the fly-wheels buzzed emptily. Against the probability of an election-demonstration was the fact that the Unionist member, to whom these attentions would naturally be directed, was Mrs. Ames’ cousin, though “cousin” was a vague word, and Mrs. Altham would not wonder if he was a very distant sort of cousin indeed. Still, it would be worth while to get tickets anyhow for the first of Sir James’ meetings, when the President of the Board of Trade was going to speak, so as to be certain of a good place. He was not Mrs. Ames’ cousin, so far as Mrs. Altham knew, though she did not pretend to follow the ramifications of Mrs. Ames’ family.
The fly-wheels were allowed to run on in silence for some little while after this meagre material had been thoroughly sifted, in case anything further offered itself; then Mr. Altham proposed another topic.
“You were saying that you wondered how Mrs. Evans got through her time,” he began.
But there was no need for him to say another word, not any opportunity.