“So I went at the tail of the deputation where I could slip out when the row began.  I swear I didn’t mean to be in it.  I funked it far too much.  I didn’t mind the police and I didn’t mind the crowd.  But I funked being with the women.  When I saw their faces.  You world have funked it.

“And anyhow I don’t like doing things in a beastly body.  Ugh!

“And then they began moving.

“The police tried to stop them.  And the crowd tried.  The crowd began jeering at them.  And still they moved.  And the mounted police horses got excited, and danced about and reared a bit, and the crowd was in a funk then and barged into the women.  That was rather awful.

“I could have got away then if I’d chosen.  There was a man close to me all the time who kept making spaces for me and telling me to slip through.  I was just going to when a woman fell.  Somewhere in the front of the deputation where the police were getting nasty.

“Then I had to stay.  I had to go on with them.  I swear I wasn’t excited or carried away in the least.  Two women near me were yelling at the police.  I hated them.  But I felt I’d be an utter brute if I left them and got off safe.  You see, it was an ugly crowd, and things were beginning to be jolly dangerous, and I’d funked it badly.  Only the first minute.  It went—­the funk I mean—­when I saw the woman go down.  She fell sort of slanting through the crowd, and it was horrible.  I couldn’t have left them then any more than I could have left children in a burning house.

“I thought of you.”

“You thought of me?”

“Yes.  I thought of you—­how you’d have hated it.  But I didn’t care.  I was sort of boosted up above caring.  The funk had all gone and I was absolutely happy.  Not insanely happy like some of the other women, but quietly, comfily happy.

“After all, I didn’t do anything you need have minded.”

“What did you do?” he said.

“I just went on and stood still and refused to go back.  I stuck my hands in my pockets so that I shouldn’t let out at a policeman or anything (I knew you wouldn’t like that).  I may have pushed a bit now and then with my shoulders and my elbows; I can’t remember.  But I didn’t make one sound.  I was perfectly lady-like and perfectly dignified.”

“I suppose you know you haven’t got a hat on?”

“It didn’t come off.  I took it off and threw it to the crowd when the row began.  It doesn’t matter about your hair coming down if you haven’t got a hat on, but if your hair’s down and your hat’s bashed in and all crooked you look a perfect idiot.

“It wasn’t a bad fight, you know, twenty-one women to I don’t know how many policemen, and the front ones got right into the doorway of St. Stephen’s.  That was where they copped me.

“But that, isn’t the end of it.

“The fight was only the first part of the adventure.  The wonderful thing was what happened afterwards.  In prison.