'I'm only pointing out that it seems not such a bad way to get it known they do want something, and—"want it bad,"' Vida added, smiling.
Jean drew her low chair almost in front of the lady who had so wounded her sensibilities a little while before with that charge of popularity-hunting.
'Mrs. Tunbridge says before that horrid scene everything was favourable at last,' the girl hazarded.
'Yes,' said Mrs. Freddy, 'we never had so many friends in the House before——'
'"Friends,"' echoed the other woman, with a faint smile.
'Why do you say it like that?'
'Because I was thinking of a funny story—(he said it was funny)—a Liberal Whip told me the other day. A Radical member went out of the House after his speech in favour of the Women's Bill, and as he came back half an hour later he heard some members talking in the lobby about the astonishing number who were going to vote for the measure. And the Friend of Woman dropped his jaw and clutched the man next him. "My God!" he said, "you don't mean they're going to give it to them!"'
'Sh! Here is Ronald.' Mrs. Freddy's tact brought her smiling to her feet as the figure of her brother-in-law appeared in the doorway. But she turned her back on him and affected absorption in the tableau presented by Jean leaning forward, elbow on knee, chin in hand, gazing steadily in Vida Levering's face.
'I don't want to interrupt you two,' said the hostess, 'but I think you must look at the pictures.'