Disobeying the mandate, the younger woman's eyes fell at last upon the figures of two young men hovering on the outer circle. The sun caught their tall, glossy hats, played upon the single flower in the frock coat, struck on the eyeglass, and gleamed mockingly on the white teeth of the one who smiled the broadest as they both stood, craning their necks, whispering and laughing, on the fringe of the crowd.
'Why, it's Dick Farnborough—and that friend of his from the Austrian Embassy.'
Vida pulled down her veil.
CHAPTER VIII
Devoutly thankful at having escaped from her compromising position unrecognized, Mrs. Fox-Moore firmly declined to go 'awskin' fur the vote' again! When Vida gave up her laughing remonstrance, Mrs. Fox-Moore thought her sister had also given up the idea. But as Vida afterwards confessed, she told herself that she would go 'just once more.' It could not be but what she was under some illusion about that queer spectacle. From one impression each admitted it was difficult to shake herself free. Whatever those women were or were not, they weren't fools. What did the leaders (in prison and out), what did they think they were accomplishing, besides making themselves hideously uncomfortable? The English Parliament, having flung them out, had gone on with its routine, precisely as though nothing had happened. Had anything happened? That was the question. The papers couldn't answer. They were given over to lies. The bare idea of women pretending to concern themselves with public affairs—from the point of view of the Press, it was enough to make the soberest sides shake with Homeric laughter.
So, then, one last time to see for one's self. And on this occasion no pettiness of disguise, Miss Levering's aspect seemed to say—no recurrence of any undignified flight. She had been frightened away from her first meeting, but she would not be frightened from the second, which was also to be the last.
An instinct unanalyzed, but significant of what was to follow, kept her from seeking companionship outside. Had Wark not gone over to the market-gardener, her former mistress would have had no misgiving about taking the woman into her confidence. But Wark, with lightning rapidity, had become Mrs. Anderson Slynes, and was beyond recall. So the new maid was told the following Sunday, that she might walk with her mistress across Hyde Park (where the papers said the meetings in future were to be), carrying some music which had to be returned to the Tunbridges.