The girl, with an astonished face, opened a door for Winnington, into a room filled with people, and then—unwillingly—led Delia along the passage.
Winnington looked round him in bewilderment. He had entered, it seemed, upon a busy hive of women. The room was full, and everybody in it seemed to be working at high pressure. A young lady at a central table was writing telegrams as fast as possible, and handing them to a telegraph clerk who was waiting. Two typewriters were busy in the further corners. A woman, with a sharply clever face, was writing near by, holding her pad on her knee, while a printer's boy, cap in hand, was sitting by her waiting for her "copy." Two other women were undoing and sorting rolls of posters. Winnington caught the head-lines—"Women of England, strike for your liberties!" "Remember our martyrs in prison!"—"Destroy property—and save lives!" "If violence won freedom for men, why not for women!" And in the distance of the room were groups in eager discussion. A few had maps in their hands, and others note-books, in which they took down the arrangements made. So far as their talk reached Winnington's ears, it seemed to relate to the converging routes of processions making for Parliament Square.
"How do you do, Mr. Winnington," said a laughing voice, as a daintily-dressed woman, with fair fluffy hair came towards him.
He recognised the sister of a well-known member of Parliament, a lady who had already been imprisoned twice for window-breaking in Downing Street.
"Who would have thought to see you here!" she said, gaily, as they shook hands.
"Surprising—I admit! I came to see Miss Blanchflower settled in her flat. But I seem to have stumbled into an office."
"The Central Office simply couldn't hold the work. We were all in each other's way. So yesterday, by Miss Marvell's instructions, some of us migrated here. We are only two streets from the central."
"Excellent!" said Winnington. "But it might perhaps have been well to inform Miss Blanchflower."
The flushed babyish face under the fashionable hat looked at him askance. Lady Fanny's tone changed—took a sharpened edge.
"Miss Blanchflower—you may be quite sure—will be as ready as anyone else to make sacrifices for the cause. But we don't expect you to understand that!"