“Still——”
“And what the devil would women be writing to us for if they weren’t Suffragettes?”
“But A.S.P.L. doesn’t stand for——”
“It must,” said Titherington. “S stands for Suffrage, doesn’t it? The rest is some fancy conglomeration. I tell you that there are so many of these societies nowadays that it’s pretty hard for a new one to find a name at all.”
“All the same——”
“There’s no use arguing about their name. The question we have to decide is whether it’s worth our while importing Suffragettes into the constituency or not.”
If Titherington had not interrupted me so often and if he had not displayed such complete self-confidence I should have told him what the A.S.P.L. really was and warned him to be very careful about enlisting Lalage’s aid. But I was nettled by his manner and felt that it would be very good for him to find out his mistake for himself. I remained silent.
“I think the best thing I can do,” he said, “is to interview the lady. I can judge then whether she’s likely to be any use to us.”
I felt very pleased to think that Titherington would learn his mistake from Lalage herself. He will be much less arrogant afterward.
“If she is simply an old frump with a bee in her bonnet,” he said, “who wants to bore people, I’ll head her off at once. If she’s a sporting sort of girl who’ll take on Vittie at his own meetings and make things hum generally, I think I’ll engage her and her lot. I don’t happen to be a magistrate myself, but most of them are your supporters. There won’t be a bit of use his trying to have her up for rioting. We’ll simply laugh at him and she’ll be worse afterward. Let me see now. She’s in Dublin. ‘Trinity Hall,’ whatever that is. If I write to-night she’ll get the letter in the morning. Suppose I say 11 a.m.”