"You should have brought her round to the meeting," said Dorothy, "and let her rave there. I'd back Aunt Emmeline against Maud Blackadder. I wish, Rosalind, you'd leave off making faces and kicking my shins. You needn't worry any more, Mummy ducky. I'm going to rope them all into the Suffrage Movement. Aunt Edie can distribute literature, Aunt Louie can interrupt like anything, and Aunt Emmeline can shout and sing."
"I think, Dorothy," said Rosalind with weak bitterness, "that you might have stuck by me."
The two were walking down East Heath Road to the tram-lines where the motor buses started for Charing Cross.
"It was you who dragged me into it, and the least you could do was to stick. Why didn't you keep quiet instead of forcing our hands?"
"I couldn't keep quiet. I'll go with you straight or I won't go with you at all."
"You know what's the matter with you? It's your family. You'll never be any good to us, you'll never be any good to yourself till you've chucked them and got away. For years--ever since you've been born--you've simply been stewing there in the family juice until you're soaked with it. You oughtn't to be living at home. You ought to be on your own--like me."
"You're talking rot, Rosalind. If my people were like yours I'd have to chuck them, I suppose; but they're not. They're angels."
"That's why they're so dangerous. They couldn't influence you if they weren't angels."
"They don't influence me the least little bit. I'd like to see them try. They're much too clever. They know I'd be off like a shot if they did. Why, they let me do every mortal thing I please--turn the schoolroom into a meeting hall for your friends to play the devil in. That Blackadder girl was yelling the house down, yet they didn't say anything. And your people aren't as bad as you make out, you know. You couldn't live on your own if your father didn't give you an allowance. I like Mrs. Jervis."
"Because she likes you."