The family chronicle was done. It was as depressing as usual, and Gertrude made but little comment upon it. When it was finished, Mrs. Marvell rose, and put the kettle on the fire, and got out a couple of fresh cups and saucers from a cupboard. As she did so, she looked round at her visitor.
"And you're as deep in that militant business as ever."
Gertrude made a negligent sign of assent.
"Well, you'll never get any good of it." The mother's pale cheek flushed. It excited her to have this chance of speaking her mind to her clever and notorious daughter, whom in many ways she secretly envied, while heartily disapproving her acts and opinions.
Gertrude shrugged her shoulders.
"What's the good of arguing?"
"Well, it's true"—said the mother, persisting. "Every new thing you do, turns more people against you. Winnie's a Suffragist—but she says you've spoilt all their game!"
Gertrude's eyes shone; she despised her mother's opinion, and her sister's still more, and yet once again in their neighbourhood, once again in the old environment, she could not help treating them in the old defiant brow-beating way.
"And you think, I suppose, that Winnie knows a good deal about it?"
"Well, she knows what everybody's saying—in the trams—and the trains everywhere. Hundreds of them that used to be for you have turned over."