“I don’t see anything very disreputable in your behaviour with me,” she replied. “But it’s only for a little while, Courtesy.”
“Oh, Lor’, no,” said Courtesy. “He’s come to stop.”
“I haven’t,” said the suffragette.
The gardener would never have put into words the appeal that came into his eyes.
“Yes,” said the suffragette, “you are thinking that I am growing more and more militant every time you see me.”
“I was not,” he answered, “I was wondering how I could manage to see you apart from all this noise.”
“Quite easily. You can walk back to Park View with me now. I have got the oranges for Albert.”
So they squeezed out of the market-place, and side by side paced the avenue of donkeys which on market days lines the village street.
“What are you waiting for?” asked the gardener. “What’s wrong with me? When will you want me?”
“It isn’t you I don’t want. It’s what you stand for. Possibly I haven’t mentioned to you that I am a suffragette of a special kind. A cat that walks by itself.... Or rather perhaps it is presumptuous of me to lay claim to cathood. I have only walked such a little way. I am an elderly kitten, say, walking by itself.”