The suffragette stood perfectly still, looking in the direction she wanted to go.
“Turn back,” said the gardener. But she made a sudden passionate effort to twist her arm out of his grasp. It was absurd, and very nearly successful, like several things that women do.
The gardener’s heart grew black. There seemed nothing to be done. No end could be imagined to the incident. His blue sea future dissolved. He pictured himself standing thus throughout eternity, with his hand closed around the little splinter of life she called her arm. Time seemed to pass so slowly that in a minute he found he knew her looks by heart. And yet he was not weary of them. I suppose the feeling he found in himself was due to a certain reaction from the exalted incident of the blue and golden young lady who had divined the loneliness of the threepenny bit. For he discovered that he did not so very much mind hair that had but little colour in it, and that he found attractive a pointed chin, and an under lip that was the least trifle more out-thrust than its fellow.
“Do you know why I want to stop you?” he said at last.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you are not a woman, and don’t understand.”
“Because I am a man, and I understand.”
She was silent.
“Do you know what I mean?”