'No, not from arrest.' The woman's mouth hardened.
'I know'—Miss Levering bridged the embarrassment of the pause—'I know there must be some rational explanation.'
But if there were it was not forthcoming.
'So you see your most indefensible and even futile-appearing action gave the cue for my greatest interest,' said Vida, with a mixture of anxiety and bluntness. 'For just the woman you were, to do so brainless a thing—what was behind? That was what I kept asking myself.'
'It—isn't—only—rough treatment one or two of us have met'—she pulled out the words slowly—'it's sometimes worse.' They both waited in a curious chill embarrassment. 'Not the police, but the stewards at political meetings, and the men who volunteer to "keep the women in order," they'—she raised her fierce eyes and the colour rose in her cheeks—'as they're turning us out they punish us in ways the public don't know.' She saw the shrinking wonder in the woman opposite, and she did not spare her. 'They punish us by underhand maltreatment—of the kind most intolerable to a decent woman.'
'Oh, no, no!' The other face was a flame to match.
'Yes!' She flung it out like a poisoned arrow.
'How dare they!' said Vida in a whisper.
'They know we dare not complain.'
'Why not?'