The woman was quite plain, and therefore worthy only of invisibility in the eyes of a self-respecting young man. She had the sort of hair that plays truant over the ears, but has not vitality enough to do it prettily. Her complexion was not worthy of the name. Her eyes made no attempt to redeem her plainness, which is the only point of having eyes in fiction. Her only outward virtue was that she did not attempt to dress as if she were pretty. And even this is not a very attractive virtue.
She carried a mustard-coloured portmanteau.
“I know what you are,” said the gardener. “You are a suffragette, going to burn a house down.”
The woman raised her eyebrows.
“How curious of you!” she said. “You are perfectly right. Votes for women!”
“Tra-la-la ...” sang the gardener wittily.
(You need not be afraid. There is not going to be so very much about the cause in this book.)
They walked some way in silence. The gardener, of course, shared the views of all decent men on this subject. One may virtuously destroy life in a good cause, but to destroy property is a heinous crime, whatever its motive.
(Yes, I know that made you tremble, but there are not many more paragraphs of it.)
Presently they passed a car, pillowed against a grassy bank. Its attitude, which looked depressed, was not the result of a catastrophe, but of a picnic. In the meadow, among the buttercups, could be seen four female hats leaning together over a little square meal set forth in the grass.