"No—but was it quite—quite fair to me—to let me suppose that the drawing-room meeting at Maumsey, which you kindly gave up, was the only meeting you had in view?"
He saw her breath fluttering.
"I don't know what you supposed, Mr. Winnington! I said nothing."
"No. But you let me draw an inference—a mistaken inference.
However—let that be. Can I not persuade you—now—to give up the
Latchford meeting, and any others of the same kind you may have ahead?"
She flamed at him.
"I refuse to give them up!" she said, setting her teeth. "I have as much right to my views as you, Mr. Winnington! I am of full age, and I intend to work for them."
"Setting fire to houses—which is what your society is advocating—and doing—hardly counts as 'views,'" he said, with sudden sternness. "Risking the lives, or spoiling the property of one's fellow countrymen, is not the same thing as political argument."
"It's our argument—" she said passionately.—"The men who are denying us the vote understand nothing else!"
The slightest humorous quiver in Winnington's strong mouth enraged her still further. But he spoke with most courteous gravity.
"Then I can't persuade you to give up these meetings? I should of course make no objection whatever, if these were ordinary Suffrage meetings. But the Society you are going to represent and collect money for is a Society that exists to break the law. And its members have—just lately—come conspicuously into collision with the law. Your father would have protested, and I am bound to protest—in his name."