the old country and we may have to put the eldest to school:  children run wild so in South Africa.  As to Miss Warren, she’s an old friend of mine and a very dear one.  I hadn’t seen her for—­for—­thirteen years, when the sound of her voice—­She’s got one of those voices you never forget—­the sound of her voice came up out of that beastly crowd of gladiators yesterday, and I found her being hammered by two policemen.  I pretty well laid one out, though I hadn’t used my fists for a matter of ten years.  Then I got knocked over myself, I passed a night in a police cell feeling pretty sick and positively maddened at not being able to ask any questions.  Then at last morning came, I had a wash and brush up—­the police after all aren’t bad chaps, and most of ’em seemed jolly well ashamed of last night’s doin’s—­Then I met Vivie in Court and your husband too.  He took me on trust and I’m awfully grateful to him.  I’ve got a dear old mater down in Kent—­Margate, don’t you know—­my dad’s still alive, Vivie!—­and she’d have been awfully cut up at hearing her son had been spending the night in a police cell and was goin’ to be fined for rioting, only fortunately the Home Secretary said we weren’t to be punished....  But Professor Rossiter’s coming on the scene was a grand thing.  Besides being an M.P., I needn’t tell you, Mrs. Rossiter, he has a world-wide reputation.  Oh, we read your books, sir, out in South Africa, I can tell you—­Well—­er—­and here we are—­and I’m monopolizing the conversation.”

Vivie sat opposite her old lover, and near to the man who loved her now with such ill-concealed passion that his hand trembled for her very proximity.  She felt strangely elated, strangely gay, at times inclined to laugh as she caught sight of her bruised and puffy face in an opposite mirror, yet happy in the knowledge that notwithstanding the thirteen years of separation, her repeated rejection of his early love, her battered appearance, Frank still felt tenderly towards her, still remembered the timbre of her voice.  Her mouth was too sore and swollen to make eating very pleasant.  She trifled with her food but she felt young and full of gay adventure.  Mrs. Rossiter a little overwhelmed with all the information Gardner had poured out, a little irritated also at the dancing light in Vivie’s eyes, turned her questionings on her.

Mrs. Rossiter:  “I suppose you are the Miss Warren who speaks so much.  I often see your name in the papers, especially in Votes for Women that the Professor takes in.  Isn’t it funny that a man should care so much about women getting the vote?  I’m sure I don’t want it.  I’m quite content to exercise my influence through him, especially now he’s in Parliament.  But then I have my home to look after, and I’m much too busy to go out and about and mix myself up in politics.  I’m quite content to leave all that to the menfolk.”