“How very well-timed,” said the priest’s sister just behind him. “Christopher, introduce the young lady.”
“We will talk of that later,” said the priest. “I have not finished my address.”
But he virtually had. For he could find nothing else to say, although he continued speaking. The girls lost interest, and began passing each other letters and photographs from their chaps. A little plain girl, beside whom the suffragette had taken her seat, handed her one of these documents.
I have said that the suffragette had a hard face—it is worth noting that no beggar ever begged of her unless he was blind. But I suppose she had loved women so long and so fiercely that there was something in her look that established confidence in the women she met. Nobody would have handed a love-letter to Mrs. Rust to read, within five minutes of her first appearance.
“The cocoa is ready, Christopher,” said the priest’s sister audibly, from an inner room.
A remark like this, though trivial, will throw almost any orator off his track. The priest stopped, with the resigned sigh of Christian irritation.
The suffragette handed the letter back to her neighbour. “What a nice chap yours must be,” she said.
“Are you the young woman wot’s come to ply the pianner?” asked the girl.
“I’m not sure,” replied the suffragette, with a guarded look at the priest. “I rather think I am.”
This was luckily considered amusing, and over the cocoa the comments on the new young woman were favourable.