The large steward observed with an indulgent smile that one must make allowances. He did not say for what or for whom, but his meaning seemed to be clear to the other steward.
"The eternal feminine, eh?" he remarked with a knowing nod; and all the men standing round laughed immoderately. Under cover of this exhibition of humour, a girl in grey, with a fur cap and muff, was allowed to pass in without any special scrutiny. She moved very deliberately along the front chairs, which were now filled, stood for an instant facing the audience while she selected her seat, then made her way to one in the middle of a row.
"Votes for women!" piped a wit in the gallery, reproducing the popular impression of the feminine voice; and the audience, strung up to the point of snatching at any outlet for emotion, rocked with mirth.
The girl in grey joined in the laughter. "Every one seems very jumpy to-night," she observed to her neighbour, a lady in tight black satin who wore the badge of some Women's Federation. "I was actually taken for a Suffragette in the market-place just now."
"Were you, now?" returned the lady, sociably. "No wonder they're a trifle apprehensive after the way those dreadful creatures went on at the Corn Exchange, last week. You were there, perhaps?"
The girl in grey said she was there, and the Federation woman proceeded to converse genially. "Thought I'd seen your face somewhere," she said. "A splendid gathering, that would have been a glorious triumph for the Party, if it hadn't been for those——" She paused for a word, and found it with satisfaction—"females. Females," she repeated distinctly. "You really can't call them anything else."
"I suppose you can't," said the girl demurely. The sparkle lit up her eyes again. "Our minister called them bipeds, in the pulpit, last Sunday," she added.
"And so they are!" cried the lady in tight black satin. "So they are."
"They are," agreed the girl in grey.
In the front row of chairs, speculation was rife as to the possible presence of Suffragettes. The wife of the man at the door, a homely little woman with a pleasant face, was assuring everybody who cared to know that the thing was impossible.