Frank:  “I see.”

The next day Vivie wisely spent in bed, healing her wounds and resting her limbs which after the mental excitement was over ached horribly.  Honoria came round and listened, applauded, pitied, laughed and concurred.

But she was well enough on the following Tuesday after Black Friday to attend another meeting of the W.S.P.U. at Caxton Hall, to hear one more ambiguous, tricky, many-ways-to-be-interpreted promise of the then Prime Minister.  Mrs. Pankhurst pointing out the vagueness of these assurances announced her intention then and there of going round to Downing Street to ask for a more definite wording.  Vivie and many others followed this dauntless lady.  Their visit was unexpected, the police force was small and the Suffragettes had two of the Cabinet Ministers at their mercy.  They contented themselves by shaking, hustling, frightening but not otherwise injuring their victims before the latter were rescued and put into taxi-cabs.

CHAPTER XIV

MILITANCY

The Lilacs,
Victoria Road, S.W.
December 31, 1910.

DEAR MICHAEL,—­

I’m so glad you got returned all right by your University.  I feared very much your championship of the Woman’s Cause might have told against you.  But these newer Universities are more liberal-minded.

I am keeping my promise to tell you of any important move I am making.  So this is to inform you, in very strict confidence, of my latest dodge.  For the effective organization of my particular branch of the W.S.P.U. activities, I must have an office.  “The Lilacs” is far too small, and besides I shrink from having my little home raided or too much visited even by confederates.  I learned the other day that the old Fraser and Warren offices on the top floor of 88-90 Chancery Lane were vacant.  The Midland Insurance Co. that occupied nearly all the building has cleared out and the block is to be given over to a multitude of small undertakings.  Well:  I secured our old rooms!  Simply splendid, with the two safes that Honoria, untold ages ago, fitted into the walls, and hid so cleverly that if there is no treachery it would be hard for the police to find them and raid them.  The Midland Insurance Co. did not behave well to Fraser and Warren, so Beryl Storrington, when she was clearing out said nothing about the safes, which were not noticed by the Company.  Honoria kept the keys and now hands them over to me.

The W.S.P.U. has taken—­also under an alias—­other offices on the same side of the way, at No. 94, top storey.  We find we can, by using the fire escape, pass over the intervening roofs and reach the parapet outside the “partners’ room” at the 88-90 building.  I shall once again make use of the little room next the partners’ office as a bedroom or rather, “tiring” room, where I can if necessary effect changes