It was not accurate to say, as Mrs. Fleming did, that you never knew when Emmeline would start a nervous crisis; for as a matter of fact you could time her to a minute.  It was her habit to wait till her family was absorbed in some urgent affair that diverted attention from her case, and then to break out alarmingly.  Dorothy was generally sent for to bring her round; but to-day it was Dorothy who had important things on hand.  Aunt Emmeline had scented the Suffrage meeting from afar, and had made arrangements beforehand for a supreme crisis that would take all the shine out of Dorothy’s affair.

When Frances said that Aunt Emmy had been tiresome again, Dorothy knew what she meant.  For Aunt Emmy’s idea was that her sisters persecuted her; that Edie was jealous of her and hated her; that Louie had always trampled on her and kept her under; that Frances had used her influence with Grannie to spoil all her chances one after another.  It was all Frances’s fault that Vera Harrison had come between her and Major Cameron; Frances had encouraged Vera in her infamous intrigue; and between them they had wrecked two lives.  And they had killed Major Cameron.

Since Ferdie’s death Emmeline Fleming had lived most of the time in a sort of dream in which it seemed to her that these things had really happened.

This afternoon she had been more than usually tiresome.  She had simply raved.

“You should have brought her round to the meeting,” said Dorothy, “and let her rave there.  I’d back Aunt Emmeline against Maud Blackadder.  I wish, Rosalind, you’d leave off making faces and kicking my shins.  You needn’t worry any more, Mummy ducky.  I’m going to rope them all into the Suffrage Movement.  Aunt Edie can distribute literature, Aunt Louie can interrupt like anything, and Aunt Emmeline can shout and sing.”

“I think, Dorothy,” said Rosalind with weak bitterness, “that you might have stuck by me.”

The two were walking down East Heath Road to the tram-lines where the motor buses started for Charing Cross.

“It was you who dragged me into it, and the least you could do was to stick.  Why didn’t you keep quiet instead of forcing our hands?”

“I couldn’t keep quiet.  I’ll go with you straight or I won’t go with you at all.”

“You know what’s the matter with you?  It’s your family.  You’ll never be any good to us, you’ll never be any good to yourself till you’ve chucked them and got away.  For years—­ever since you’ve been born—­you’ve simply been stewing there in the family juice until you’re soaked with it.  You oughtn’t to be living at home.  You ought to be on your own—­like me.”

“You’re talking rot, Rosalind.  If my people were like yours I’d have to chuck them, I suppose; but they’re not.  They’re angels.”

“That’s why they’re so dangerous.  They couldn’t influence you if they weren’t angels.”