'Not quite what I expected!' said Mrs. Fox-Moore, with an unmistakable accent of disappointment. It was plainly her meaning that to a general reprehensibleness, dulness was now superadded.
'Perhaps these are not the ones,' said Vida, catching at hope.
Mrs. Fox-Moore took heart. 'Suppose we find out,' she suggested.
They had penetrated the fringe of a gathering composed largely of weedy youths and wastrel old men. A few there were who looked like decent artizans, but more who bore the unmistakable aspect of the beery out-of-work. Among the strangely few women, were two or three girls of the domestic servant or Strand Restaurant cashier class—wearers of the cheap lace blouse and the wax bead necklace.
Mrs. Fox-Moore, forgetting some of her reluctance now that she was on the spot, valiantly followed Vida as the younger woman threaded her way among the constantly increasing crowd. Just in front of where the two came to a final standstill was a quiet-looking old man with a lot of unsold Sunday papers under one arm and wearing like an apron the bill of the Sunday Times. Many of the boys and young men were smoking cigarettes. Some of the older men had pipes. Mrs. Fox-Moore commented on the inferior taste in tobacco as shown by the lower orders. But she, too, kept her eyes glued to the figures up there on the plinth.
'They've had to get men to hold up their banners for them,' laughed Vida, as though she saw a symbolism in the fact, further convicting these women of folly.
'But there's a well-dressed man—that one who isn't holding up anything that I can see—what on earth is he doing there?'
'Perhaps he'll be upholding something later.'
'Going to speak, you mean?'
'It may be a debate. Perhaps he's going to present the other side.'