Angelica nodded, gave the audience Beth's name, and then leant back in her chair. The shorthand writers looked up indifferently, not expecting to hear anything worth recording.
Beth went forward to the edge of the platform with a look of intentness on her delicate face, and utterly oblivious of herself, or anything else but her subject. She never thought of asking herself if she could speak. All she considered was what she was going to say. She clasped her slender hands in front of her, and began, slowly, with the formula she had heard the other speakers use: "Madam Chairman, ladies—" She paused, then suddenly spoke out on The Desecration of Marriage.
At the first resonant notes of her clear, dispassionate voice, there was a movement of interest, a kind of awakening, in the hall, and the ladies on the platform behind her, who had been whispering to each other, writing notes and passing them about, and paying more attention to the business of the meeting generally than to the speakers, paused and looked up.
Suddenly Ideala, with kindling eyes, leant over to Mrs. Orton Beg, grasped her arm, and said something eagerly. Mrs. Orton Beg nodded. The word went round. Beth held the hall, and was still rising from point to point, carrying the audience with her to a pitch of excitement which finally culminated in a great burst of applause.
Beth, taken aback, stopped short, surprised and bewildered by the racket; looked about her, faltered a few more words, and then sat down abruptly.
The applause was renewed and prolonged.
"What does it mean?" Beth asked Ideala in an agony. "Did I say something absurd?"
"My dear child," Ideala answered, laughing, "they are not jeering, but cheering!"
"Is that cheering?" Beth exclaimed in an awe-stricken tone, overcome to find she had produced such an effect. "I feared they meant to be derisive."
"I didn't know you were a speaker," Mrs. Orton Beg whispered.