The days of a militant suffragette are full to overflowing, and Silvia Holland was not able to see Mrs. Bell and her little daughter early the following morning as she had planned. It must have been well toward the middle of the afternoon when she entered the modest apartment, and going to the bed, visible in the alcove, kissed the child and put a great, dewy bunch of violets in her hand. She took them, and hugged them tight in her thin little arms, while her eyes looked into Silvia's wonderingly, and her mother turned away to hide the sudden tears.
The apartment was well though not expensively furnished, and both mother and child had the unmistakable air of good birth and refinement. As Silvia glanced at Mrs. Bell she was conscious of something in her face at once baffling and appealing. She had the indefinable look of one who dwells with a sorrow for which there is no cure.
"Are you quite sure there is nothing I can do for either of you to-day?" Silvia asked, a trifle diffidently, for she did not want to offend by overzeal.
"You and Dr. Earl have placed us under so many obligations that we can never hope to repay them," Mrs. Bell said quietly. "If I do not speak more freely of what I feel, it is because I have no words for its expression."
"Don't speak or think of obligations," Silvia said lightly, "and here is my card, so that if at any time I might be of service to you I hope you will not hesitate to call on me. I live at the Whittier Studios." The card which she gave Mrs. Bell read:
Silvia Holland,
Attorney and Counsellor-at-Law,
City Investment Building,
New York City.
Mrs. Bell looked at it curiously. "Oh, it isn't possible that you are that Miss Holland, the Miss Holland!" she said incredulously.
Silvia laughed. "Don't I look as if I could say 'Gentlemen of the jury' with sufficient gravity?" she said. "Probably I shall do better when we say 'Ladies of the jury,' too."
"You look like what you are, a beautiful and fashionable lady," Mrs. Bell answered. "Surely no one would ever take you for a professional woman."
"Must a fashionable lady be a listless parasite? Even if she wishes merely to be a queen of society, would she not be more queenly if she knew the trials and afflictions of others, and, better still, knew how to help them? Would she be less a queen if she were not dependent upon some man for her daily bread——"