So, reversing the order of Nature, the butterfly had retired into a 'grubby' state. In other words, Vida had put on the plainest of her discarded mourning-gowns. From a small Tuscan straw travelling-toque, the new maid, greatly wondering at such instructions, had extracted an old paste buckle and some violets, leaving it 'not fit to be seen.' In spite of having herself taken these precautions, Vida had broken into uncontrollable smiles at the apparition of Mrs. Fox-Moore, asking with pride—
'Will I do? I look quite like a Woman of the People, don't I?'
The unconscious humour of the manifestation filled Miss Levering with an uneasy merriment every time she turned her eyes that way.
Little as Mr. Fox-Moore thought of his wife's taste, either in clothes or in amusements, he would have been more mystified than ever he had been in his life had he seen her hansom, ten minutes later, stop on the north side of Trafalgar Square, opposite the National Gallery.
'Look out and see,' she said, retiring guiltily into the corner of the conveyance. 'Are they there?' And it was plain that nothing could more have relieved Mrs. Fox-Moore at that moment than to hear 'they' were not.
But Vida, glancing discreetly out of the side window, had said—
'There? I should think they are—and a crowd round them already. Look at their banners!' and she laughed as she leaned out and read the legend, 'We demand VOTES FOR WOMEN' inscribed in black letters on the white ground of two pieces of sheeting stretched each between a pair of upright poles, standing one on either side of the plinth of Nelson's column. In the very middle, and similarly supported, was a banner of blood red. Upon this one, in great white letters, appeared the legend—
'EFFINGHAM, THE ENEMY
of
WOMEN AND THE WORKERS.'
As Vida read it out—
'What!' ejaculated her sister. 'They haven't really got that on a banner!' And so intrigued was she that, like some shy creature dwelling in a shell, cautiously she protruded her head out of the shiny, black sheath of the hansom.