“Now?”
“Instantly.”
For an interval neither lady spoke. It was the visitor at last who broke the tension.
“Do you think,” she asked in a small voice and with the hesitation of one whom no refusal can surprise; “you could give me a cup of tea?”
Miss Alimony rose with a sigh and a slow unfolding rustle. “I forgot,” she said. “My little maid is out.”
Lady Harman left alone sat for a time staring at the fire with her eyes rather wide and her eyebrows raised as though she mutely confided to it her infinite astonishment. This was the last thing she had expected. She would have to go to some hotel. Can a woman stay alone at an hotel? Her heart sank. Inflexible forces seemed to be pointing her back to home—and Sir Isaac. He would be a very triumphant Sir Isaac, and she’d not have much heart left in her.... “I won’t go back,” she whispered to herself. “Whatever happens I won’t go back....”
Then she became aware of the evening newspaper Miss Alimony had been reading. The headline, “Suffrage Raid on Regent Street,” caught her eye. A queer little idea came into her head. It grew with tremendous rapidity. She put out a hand and took up the paper and read.
She had plenty of time to read because her hostess not only got the tea herself but went during that process to her bedroom and put on one of those hats that have contributed so much to remove the stigma of dowdiness from the suffrage cause, as an outward and visible sign that she was presently ceasing to be at home....
Lady Harman found an odd fact in the report before her. “One of the most difficult things to buy at the present time in the West End of London,” it ran, “is a hammer....”
Then a little further: “The magistrate said it was impossible to make discriminations in this affair. All the defendants must have a month’s imprisonment....”