The dinner-bell rang as Dorothy was defining her position.

“I’ll work for you; I’ll speak for you; I’ll write for you; I’ll fight for you.  I’ll make hay of every Government meeting, if I can get in without lying and sneaking for it.  I’ll go to prison for you, if I can choose my own crime.  But I won’t give up my liberty of speech and thought and action.  I won’t pledge myself to obey your orders.  I won’t pledge myself not to criticize policy I disapprove of.  I won’t come on your Committee, and I won’t join your Union.  Is that clear and precise enough?”

Somebody clapped and somebody said, “Hear, Hear!” And somebody said, “Go it, Dorothy!”

It was Anthony and Frances and Captain Drayton, who paused outside the door on their way to the dining-room, and listened, basely.

* * * * *

They were all going now.  Dorothy stood at the door, holding it open for them, glad that it was all over.

Only Phyllis Desmond, the art-student, lingered.  Dorothy reminded her that they had met at her aunt Vera Harrison’s house.

The art-student smiled.  “I wondered when you were going to remember.”

“I did, but they all called you Desmond.  That’s what put me out.”

“Everybody calls me Desmond.  You had a brother or something with you, hadn’t you?”

“I might have had two.  Which?  Michael’s got green eyes and yellow hair.  Nicky’s got blue eyes and black hair.”

“It was Nicky—­nice name—­then.”

Desmond’s beauty stirred in its sleep.  The film of air was lifted from her black eyes.

“I’m dining with Mrs. Harrison to-night,” she said.

“You’ll be late then.”

“It doesn’t matter.  Lawrence Stephen’s never there till after eight.  She won’t dine without him.”

Dorothy stiffened.  She did not like that furtive betrayal of Vera and Lawrence Stephen.

“I wish you’d come and see me at my rooms in Chelsea.  And bring your brother.  Not the green and yellow one.  The blue and black one.”

Dorothy took the card on which Desmond had scribbled an address.  But she did not mean to go and see her.  She wasn’t sure that she liked Desmond.

* * * * *

Rosalind stayed on to dine with Dorothy’s family.  She was no longer living with her own family, for Mrs. Jervis was hostile to Women’s Franchise.  She had rooms off the Strand, not far from the headquarters of the Union.

Frances looked a little careworn.  She had been sent for to Grannie’s house to see what could be done with Aunt Emmeline, and had found, as usual, that nothing could be done with her.  In the last three years the second Miss Fleming had become less and less enthusiastic, and more and more emphatic, till she ceased from enthusiasm altogether and carried emphasis beyond the bounds of sanity.  She had become, as Frances put it, extremely tiresome.