“Because I could plainly see you taking notes in it.”

“You thought me a spy?”

“You don’t leave me much room for doubt.”

They guided each other to the gate of the police-station.  There they stopped again.

“This is where I was bringing you,” said Anonyma, as their eyes fell simultaneously on the label over the door:  “Sussex County Police.”

“It seems to me that honours are easy,” she added after a pause.  “Don’t you see what has happened?”

The stranger thought for a moment with a look of dawning relief on his pink face.  “But you couldn’t have made up all those dreadful opinions,” he said.

“I didn’t,” said Anonyma.  “I meant them all—­as applied to England.”

“Don’t you think we’d better take each other in to make sure?” suggested her companion.  “The Inspector’s quite a good sort.  I know him well....”

“You may read my notebook if you like to make quite sure,” said Anonyma.  “I’m almost sure the Inspector would have either too much or too little sense of humour for the situation.”

She was conscious of a certain disappointment.  Her adventure had fallen flat, she felt no pleasure in the idea of painting a vivid word-vignette for the people at home.  Even her notebook must never hear of this morning’s work.

“How foolish of you,” she said irritably.  “Do I look like a spy?”

“Do I?”

She felt impelled to be angry with him, and seized upon another pretext.

“You are a conscientious objector, I suppose.  And what business has a conscientious objector to be spy-hunting?  Do I understand that you will only help your country when you can do it vicariously, through the police, with no risk to yourself?  It isn’t very dignified.”

“A spy is outside every pale,” said the stranger.  “My conscience objects to the shedding of blood.  Yet it is an English conscience all the same.”

“English?” said Anonyma.  “If you won’t die for England, England isn’t yours to love.  You shall not have that honour.”

“If dying for England is the test of a patriot,” said the pink Quaker, “what about you?”

“I would die for England.  I work for England,” said Anonyma.

(Four hours a week.)

She went on:  “I have told you already that women—­in either sex—­are superfluous to-day.  But after all, real women were born to their burden, women were born to put up with second bests.  And also posterity is mostly a woman’s job.  But you were born a man, with a great heritage of honour.  You have kicked that honour away.  You have sold your birthright.”

The Quaker was the sort of man in whose face and mind one could see exactly what his mother was like.  Some men are like that, and others, one would say, could never have been so intimate with a woman as to be born of her.

“My soul is greater than I am,” said the stranger.  “There is no command that drowns the command of the soul.  I cannot possibly be wrong.”