“She shall be cast forth from our midst!” shrilled Miss Jenkyn; and her supporters raised a horrible screaming cry of agreement.
“Cast her forth!” they cried, finding full justification for their high pitch of emotion in the use of Biblical phrase.
“Cast forth your grandmother!” replied Thrale calmly. “Get back to your homes, and don’t be foolish.”
“He is possessed of the devil!” chanted Miss Jenkyn. “The Lord has called upon us to vindicate his honour and glory. This man, too, must not be suffered to dwell in the congregation.”
“Down with him! down with him!” assented the little crowd, now so exalted with the glory of their common purpose that they were ready for martyrdom.
Miss Jenkyn was an undersized, withered little spinster of forty-five, and physically impotent; but, drunk with the fervour of her emotion, and encouraged by the sympathy of her followers and the fury of her own voice, she flung herself fiercely upon the calm figure of Jasper Thrale. Her thwarted self-expression had found an outlet. She desired the blood of Millie Gosling and Jasper Thrale with the same intensity that women had once desired a useless vote.
Jasper Thrale put out a careless hand and pushed her back into the arms of the women behind her; but she was up again instantly, and, backed by the crowd, who, encouraging themselves by shrill screams of “Cast them forth!” were now thrusting forward into the narrow doorway, she renewed the assault with all the fierce energy of a struggling kitten.
“I shall lose my temper in a minute,” said Thrale, as he took a step forward and, bracing himself against the door frame, drove the women back with vigorous thrusts of his powerful arms.
To lose his temper, indeed, seemed the only way of escape; to give way to berserk rage, and so to injure these muscularly feeble creatures that they would be unable to continue the struggle. But the babble of screaming voices was bringing other helpers to his aid, chief among them Lady Durham, and her cold, clear voice fell on the hysterical Jenkynites like a douche of cold water.
“Clara Jenkyn, what are you doing?” asked Elsie Durham.