Eliza: “Know ’oo?”
Me: “Canon Black. The low Churchman. Never mind; you have promised me the vote, and I’ll call for you.”
“Pouff!” I said, as I came up the steps. “That’s hot work! Take my card, would you, please, dear, and write down ‘carriage as early as possible.’ It is just a question of which gets there first, Esau or Jacob.”
“I have got one or two in this street,” said Miss Kate. “I forgot about them, or I would have gone while you were cracking your tonsils down there. If you will go on slowly I will catch you up, and you can be resting your voice.”
I walked down the street and turned back. I walked up the street and turned back. “In another minute,” I thought, “I shall be arrested for loitering with intent. I wish Miss Kate would hurry up.” I was just passing a little house with dingy green curtains half-way up the windows when, to my surprise, the door burst open and Miss Kate shot out like an arrow aimed with temper.
“Run!” she breathed. “Run—don’t let him get us.”
We ran like sandpipers for a mile, and then Miss Kate stopped and looked behind her. “It’s all right,” she said, “I don’t think he has followed us. He was an anti-vivisectionist—just fancy! I would have sent one of the men from the committee rooms if I had known.”
“But you say he is an ‘anti,’” I remonstrated, a little peevish and out of breath. “If he is an ‘anti’ he wouldn’t have cut you up. What’s the fuss?”
“They talk,” said Miss Kate, with a long breath. There was a pause; I still didn’t understand.