Barry did not know just what a crusader was, but he did know that Mrs. Bradley smiled on him, and looked at him out of eloquent eyes, and he went out from her presence with such a buoyant sensation of pride and happiness as, in all his life before, he had never experienced.
After he had gone the secretary of the Socialist League turned again to her books and papers, but she did not resume her work. Instead she sat staring out through the dim window at the dead-wall across the area. What was there about a dead-wall that could, with such foreboding significance, so hold her gaze?
A woman entered her office and interrupted her musings. She turned toward her visitor impatiently, but not discourteously.
“I have not yet had an opportunity,” she said, in answer to the woman’s inquiry, “to take up your matter with the directors of the League.”
“Then I hope you’ll soon find one,” was the reply. “You should know that it is of the utmost importance, both to your organization and to ours, that we should know definitely and without delay where you stand in the matter.”
“There is no question about where we stand in the matter, Mrs. Dalloway. Our organization is wholly in sympathy with your movement. We should not be socialists if we were not. It’s one of our cardinal doctrines that women are entitled to equal rights with men in everything.”
“I know it is,” replied the visitor sharply. “But theory is one thing and practice is another. I want to see your organization actually and definitely doing something for woman suffrage.”
The secretary turned toward her books.
“I’ll bring your matter before the board,” she said, “at the earliest opportunity.”