Cicily did not hesitate to remove all ambiguity from the utterance of the militant suffragette with the sallow, narrow face.
"And you were a great leader, were you not, Mrs. Flynn?" she demanded, bluntly.
There were covert smiles from the other women; but the Englishwoman was frankly gratified by the implication. She was smiling with pleasure as she answered:
"I may say truthfully that I know the inside of almost every police-station in London."
At this startling announcement, uttered with every appearance of pride, the suffragette's hearers displayed their amazement by exclamations and gestures. Mrs. Carrington especially made manifest the fact that she had scant patience with this manner of martyrdom in the cause of woman's emancipation.
"My dear Mrs. Flynn," she said, with a hint of contempt in her voice, "here in America, we do not think that getting into jail is necessarily a cause for pride." There were murmurs of assent from most of the others; but Mrs. Flynn herself was in no wise daunted.
"Well, then, it should be," she retorted, briskly. "Zeal is the watchword!"
"I think that Mrs. Flynn should be president," Miss Johnson cried with sudden enthusiasm. "She has suffered in the cause!"
"Oh, for that matter," interjected Mrs. Morton flippantly, "most of us are married." It was known to all those whom she addressed, save perhaps the Englishwoman, that at the age of forty Mrs. Morton had undergone two divorces, and that she was now living wretchedly with a third husband, so she spoke with the authority of one having had sufficient experience.
But Mrs. Flynn was too much interested in her own harrowing experiences to be diverted by cynical raillery.