“I don’t believe you really are.  And if you are, there may be a judgment upon you,” she added playfully.  “I tell you she’s the kind of woman artists go mad about.  She has what sentimentalists call temperament, and after all we haven’t any better word to express dynamic desires.  She’d keep you stirred up, stimulated, and you could educate her.”

“No, thanks, I’ll leave that to you.  He who educates a woman is lost.  But how about Syndicalism and all the mysticism that goes with it?  There’s an intellectual over at Headquarters who’s been talking to her about Bergson, the life-force, and the World-We-Ourselves-Create.”

Mrs. Maturin laughed.

“Well, we go wrong when we don’t go right.  That’s just it, we must go some way.  And I’m sure, from what I gather, that she isn’t wholly satisfied with Syndicalism.”

“What is right?” demanded Insall.

“Oh, I don’t intend to turn her over to Mr. Worrall and make a sociologist and a militant suffragette out of her.  She isn’t that kind, anyhow.  But I could give her good literature to read—­yours, for instance,” she added maliciously.

“You’re preposterous, Augusta,” Insall exclaimed.

“I may be, but you’ve got to indulge me.  I’ve taken this fancy to her —­of course I mean to see more of her.  But—­you know how hard it is for me, sometimes, since I’ve been left alone.”

Insall laid his hand affectionately on her shoulder.

“I remember what you said the first day I saw her, that the strike was in her,” Mrs. Maturin continued.  “Well, I see now that she does express and typify it—­and I don’t mean the `labour movement’ alone, or this strike in Rampton, which is symptomatic, but crude.  I mean something bigger —­and I suppose you do—­the protest, the revolt, the struggle for self-realization that is beginning to be felt all over the nation, all over the world today, that is not yet focussed and self-conscious, but groping its way, clothing itself in any philosophy that seems to fit it.  I can imagine myself how such a strike as this might appeal to a girl with a sense of rebellion against sordidness and lack of opportunity—­especially if she has had a tragic experience.  And sometimes I suspect she has had one.”

“Well, it’s an interesting theory,” Insall admitted indulgently.

“I’m merely amplifying your suggestions, only you won’t admit that they are yours.  And she was your protegee.”  “And you are going to take her off my hands.”  “I’m not so sure,” said Mrs. Maturin.

CHAPTER XIX