"I'm afraid I'm bound up with the cause more intimately than you think," she began with unexpected gentleness. "For—let me see—three years now people have been trying to show me the error of my ways, and I go on just the same. Men and women, friends and relations, a Suffragan Bishop...."
"Quite a proper distinction," I interrupted. "Neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring."
"...and the only result is that I sink daily deeper into the mire."
"But this is where I come in."
"Too late, I'm afraid. Listen. I used to have a little money of my own. I've sold out every stock and share I possessed to help found the New Militant. I'm living on the salary they pay me to edit it. That looks like business, doesn't it?"
I straightened my tie, buttoned the last button of my gloves, and mounted the first step of the Hall stairs.
"Living out in the East," I said, "I have learnt the virtue of infinite patience."
Joyce remained silent. It occurred to me that I had left an important question unasked.
"When I win my wager," I began.
"You won't."