Vida smiled grimly. 'Yes, I'm glad, too.'
'And if Geoffrey Stonor offered you—er—"reparation," you'd refuse it?'
'Geoffrey Stonor! For me he's simply one of the far back links in a chain of evidence. It's certain I think a hundred times of other women's present unhappiness to once that I remember that old unhappiness of mine that's past. I think of the nail and chain makers of Cradley Heath, the sweated girls of the slums; I think,' her voice fell, 'of the army of ill-used women, whose very existence I mustn't mention——'
Lady John interrupted her hurriedly. 'Then why in heaven's name do you let poor Jean imagine——'
Vida suddenly bent forward. 'Look—I'll trust you, Lady John. I don't suffer from that old wrong as Jean thinks I do, but I shall coin her sympathy into gold for a greater cause than mine.'
'I don't understand you.'
'Jean isn't old enough to be able to care as much about a principle as about a person. But if my old half-forgotten pain can turn her generosity into the common treasury——'
'What do you propose she shall do, poor child?'
'Use her hold over Geoffrey Stonor to make him help us.'
'To help you?'