'They cried, those women,' she said.
'But they came?' asked the other, trembling, as though for her, too, it was vital that these poor women should not quail.
'Yes,' answered their leader a little hoarsely, 'they came!'
CHAPTER XII
One of the oddest things about these neo-Suffragists was the simplicity with which they accepted aid—the absence in the responsible ones of conventional gratitude. This became matter for both surprise and instruction to the outsider. It no doubt had the effect of chilling and alienating the 'philanthropist on the make.' Even to the less ungenerous, not bargainers for approbation or for influence, even in their case the deep-rooted suspicion we have been taught to cultivate for one another, makes the gift of good faith so difficult that it can be given freely only to people like these, people who plainly and daily suffered for their creed, who stood to lose all the things most of us strive for, people who valued neither comfort, nor money, nor the world's good word. That they took help, and even sacrifice, as a matter of course, seemed in them mere modesty and sound good sense; tantamount to saying, 'I am not so silly or self-centred as to suppose you do this for me. You do it, of course, for the Cause. The Cause is yours—is all Women's. You serve humanity. Who am I that I should thank you?'
This attitude extended even to acts that were in truth prompted less by concern for the larger issue than by sheer personal interest.
Vida Levering's first experience of this 'new attitude' came one late afternoon while on her way to leave cards on some people in Grosvenor Road. Driving through Pimlico about half-past six, she lifted up her eyes at the sound of many voices and beheld a mob of men and boys in the act of pursuing a little group of women, who were fleeing up a side street away from the river. The natural shrinking and disgust of 'the sheltered woman' showed in the face of the occupant of the brougham as she leaned forward and said to the coachman—
'Not this way! Don't you see there's some disturbance? Turn back.'