“Oh, she’s that.”
“So I saw. And she’s an uncommonly good-looking girl. The crowd will be all on her side when she starts breaking up Vittie’s meetings.”
“You accepted her offer of help then?”
“Certainly,” said Titherington. “She’s to speak at a meeting of yours on the twenty-first.”
Titherington was by this time talking with all his usual buoyant confidence, but I still caught the furtive look in his eyes which I had noticed at first. He seemed to me to have something to conceal, to be challenging criticism and to be preparing to defend himself. Now a man who is on the defensive and who wants to conceal something has generally acted in a way of which he is ashamed. I felt encouraged.
“You didn’t commit me in any way, I hope,” I said.
“Certainly not. I didn’t have to. She was as keen as nuts on helping us and didn’t ask a single question about your views on the suffrage question. I needn’t say I didn’t introduce the subject.”
“You didn’t sign anything, I suppose?”
Titherington became visibly embarrassed. He hesitated.
“I rather expected you’d have to,” I said.