Rossiter:  “Yes, it’s true, and he asked for it.  If I am unreasonable what are they? ——­, ——­, and ——?  Why have they such a bitter feeling against your sex?  Have they had no mothers, no sweethearts, no sisters, no wives?  If I’d never met you I should still have been a Suffragist.  I think I was one, as a boy, watching what my mother suffered from my father, and how he collared all her money—­I suppose it was before the Married Woman’s Property Act—­and grudged her any for her dress, her little comforts, her books, or even for proper medical advice.  And to hear these Liberal Cabinet Ministers—­Liberal, mind you—­talk about women, often with the filthy phrases of the street—­Well:  he got a smack on the jaw and decided to treat the incident as a trifling one ... his private secretary patched it up somehow, but I expressed no regret....

“Well, darling, I’ll try to do as you wish.  I’ll try to shut you out of my thoughts and return to my experiments, when I’m not on platforms or in the House.  I think I shall get in again—­it’s a mere matter of money, and thanks to Linda that isn’t wanting.  I’m not going to withdraw from politics, you bet, however disenchanted I may be.  It’s because the decent, honest, educated men withdraw that legislation and administration are left to the case-hardened rogues ... and the uneducated ... and the cranks.  But don’t make things too hard for me.  Keep out of prison ... keep off hunger strikes—­If you’re going to be man-handled by the police—­Ah! why wasn’t I there, instead of in the House?  Gardner had all the luck....  I was glad to hear he was married.”

Vivie:  “Oh you needn’t be jealous of poor Frank.  And he’ll soon be back in South Africa.  You needn’t be jealous of any one.  I’m all yours—­in spirit—­for all time.  Now we must be going:  it’s getting dusk and we should be irretrievably ruined if we were locked up in this dilapidated old palm house.  Besides, I’m to meet Frank at Praddy’s studio in order to tell him the history of the last thirteen years.”

As they walked away:  “You know, Michael, I’m still hoping we may be friends without being lovers.  I wonder whether Linda would get to like me?”

At Praed’s studio.  Lewis Maitland Praed is looking older.  He must be now—­November, 1910—­about fifty-eight or fifty-nine.  But he has still a certain elegance, the look of a lesser Leighton about him.  Frank has been there already for half an hour, and the tea-table has been, so to speak, deflowered.  Vivie accepts a cup, a muffin, and a marron glace.  Then says, “Now, dear Praddy, summon your mistress, dons l’honnete sens du mot, and have this tea-table cleared so that we can have a hugely long and uninterrupted talk.  I have got to give Frank a summary of all that I’ve done in the past thirteen years.  Meanwhile Frank, as your record, I feel convinced, is so blameless and normal that it could be told before any parlour-maid, you start off whilst she is taking away the tea, fiddling with the stove, and prolonging to the uttermost her services to a master who has become her slave.”