“You again,” said the gardener to the suffragette, for he recognised her by her hat. There was a bunch of promiscuous flowers attached to her hat. They were of an unsuitable colour, and looked as though they had taken on their present situation as an after-thought, when the hat was already well advanced in years. A mariage de convenance.
“Have you any matches?” was the suffragette’s characteristic reply.
“I never give away my matches to people with political opinions without making the fullest enquiries,” replied the gardener. “People are not careful enough about the future morals of their innocent matches in these days.”
Forgetting the thirty-five miles, he sat down on the bank beside her, and began to refresh Hilda by splashing the water into her pot out of a tiny heathery stream that explored the roadside ditch.
“I can supply you with all particulars at once,” said the suffragette in a businesslike voice. “I am going to burn down a little red empty hotel that stands in the woods behind you. There is only one man in charge.”
“You are not,” said the gardener, descending suddenly to unfeigned sincerity.
“Certainly it is not the home of an Anti,” continued the suffragette, ignoring his remark. “At least as far as I know. But you never can tell. A Cabinet Minister might want to come and stay there any time; there are good golf-links. I had hoped that the last affair, the burning of West Grove—a most successful business—would have been my last protest for the present. I meant to be arrested, and spend a month or two at the not less important work of setting the teeth of the Home Office on edge. But the police are disgracefully lax in this part of the world, and though I left several clues and flourished my portmanteau in three neighbouring villages, nothing happened. I do not like to give myself up, it is so inartistic, and people are apt to translate it as a sign of repentance. But the little hotel is a splendid opportunity.”
One of the drawbacks of posing yourself is that you are apt to become a little blind to the poses of others. Also you must remember that women, and especially rebellious women, were an unexplored continent to the gardener.
“You are not going to take advantage of the opportunity,” said the gardener, refreshing Hilda so violently that she stood up to her knees in water.
“I’ve heard the caretaker is constantly out ...” went on the suffragette.