Linda:  “Oh, have I?  To be sure.  But it’s Lady Goring that does the opening, I’m much too nervous.  Still I promised to come.  Would Miss Warren care to come with me?”

Vivie:  “I should have liked to awfully:  I love bazaars; but just at this moment I’m thinking more of those succulent plants ... and my battered face.”

Rossiter:  “I’ll make up your minds for you.  We’ll all drive to the Zoo in Linda’s motor.  Gardner shall look at the animals and then find his way to Hans Place.  I’ll escort Miss Warren to the Botanic, and then come on and pick you up, Linda, at the Town Hall.”

That statement seemed to satisfy every one, so after coffee and a glance round the laboratory and the last experiments, they proceeded to the Zoo, with at least an hour’s daylight at their disposal.

Rossiter and Vivie were at last alone within the charmed circle of the Botanic Gardens.  They made their way slowly to the great Palm House and thence up twisty iron steps to a nook like a tree refuge in New Guinea, among palm boles and extravagant aroid growths.

“Now Michael,” said Vivie—­despite her bruised face she looked very elegant in her grey costume, grey hat, and grey suede gloves, and he had to exercise great self-restraint, remember that he was known by sight to most of the gardeners and to the ubiquitous secretary, in order to refrain from crushing her to his side:  “Now Michael:  I want a serious talk to you, a talk which will last for another eighteen months—­which is about the time that has elapsed since we had our last—­You’re not keeping the pact we made.”

“What was that?”

“Why you promised me that your—­your—­love—­No!  I won’t misuse that word—­Your friendship for me should not spoil your life, your career, or make Linda unhappy.  Yet it is doing all three.  You’ve lived in a continual agitation since you got into Parliament, and now you’ll be involved in more electioneering in order to be returned once more.  Meantime your science has come to a dead stop.  And it’s so far more important for us than getting the Vote.  All this franchise agitation is on a much lower plane.  It amuses and interests me.  It keeps me from thinking too much about you.  Besides, I am naturally rather combative; I secretly enjoy these rough-and-tumbles with constituted authority.  I also really do think it is a beastly shame, this preference shown for man, in most of the careers and in the franchise.  But don’t you worry yourself unduly about it.  If I really thought that you cared so much about me that it was turning you away from our religion, scientific research, I’d go over to Brussels to my mother and stay there.  I really would; and I really will if you don’t stop following me about from meeting to meeting and going mad over the Suffrage question in the House.  Is it true that you struck a Cabinet minister the other day?  Mr. ——?”