Miss Welkin looked about her, mildly surprised. It was a pretty room, but somehow she felt uncomfortable. Victoria was looking at her. A capable type of femininity this; curious, though, in its thick man-like clothes, its strong boots. She was not bad looking, thirty perhaps, very erect and rather flat. Her face was fresh, clean, innocent of powder; her eyes were steady behind glasses; her hair was mostly invisible, being tightly pulled back. There were firm lines about her mouth. A fighting animal.
'I hope you'll excuse this intrusion,' said the suffragist, 'but I got your name from the directory and I have come to . . . to ascertain your views about the all-important question of the vote.' There was a queer stiltedness about the little speech. Miss Welkin was addressing the meeting.
'Oh? I'm very much interested,' said Victoria. 'Of course I don't know anything about it except what I read in the papers.'
The grey eyes glittered. Evangelic fervour radiated from them. 'That's what we want,' said the suffragist. 'It's just the people who are ready to be our friends who haven't heard our side and who get biassed. Mrs Ferris, I'm sure you'll come in with us and join the Marylebone branch?'
'But how can I?' asked Victoria. 'You see I know nothing about it all.'
'Let me give you these pamphlets,' said the suffragist. Victoria obediently took a leaflet on the marriage law, a pamphlet on 'The Rights of Women,' a few more papers too, some of which slipped to the floor.
'Thank you,' she said, 'but first of all tell me, why do you want the vote?'
The suffragist looked at her for a second. This might be a keen recruit when she was converted. Then a flood of words burst from her.
'Oh, how can any woman ask, when she sees the misery, the subjection in which we live. We say that we want the vote because it is the only means we have to attain economic freedom . . . we say to man: "Put your weapon in our hands and we will show you what we can do." We want to have a voice in the affairs of the country. We want to say how the taxes we pay shall be spent, how our children shall be educated, whether our sons shall go to war. We say it's wrong that we should be disfranchised because we are women . . . it is illogical . . . we must have it.'
The suffragist stopped for a second to regain breath.