“You never can tell what factory girls do look like in these days,” she observed mischievously.

“That’s so,” Mrs. Brocklehurst agreed, “we are living in such extraordinary times, everything topsy turvy.  I ought to have realized —­it was stupid of me—­I know several factory girls in New York, I’ve been to their meetings, I’ve had them at my house—­shirtwaist strikers.”

She assumed again the willowy, a position, her fingers clasped across her knee, her eyes supplicatingly raised to Janet.  Then she reached out her hand and touched the I.W.W. button.  “Do tell me all about the Industrial Workers, and what they believe,” she pleaded.

“Well,” said Janet, after a slight pause, “I’m afraid you won’t like it much.  Why do you want to know?”

“Because I’m so interested—­especially in the women of the movement.  I feel for them so, I want to help—­to do something, too.  Of course you’re a suffragist.”

“You mean, do I believe in votes for women?  Yes, I suppose I do.”

“But you must,” declared Mrs. Brocklehurst, still sweetly, but with emphasis.  “You wouldn’t be working, you wouldn’t be striking unless you did.”

“I’ve never thought about it,” said Janet.

“But how are you working girls ever going to raise wages unless you get the vote?  It’s the only way men ever get anywhere—­the politicians listen to them.”  She produced from her bag a gold pencil and a tablet.  “Mrs. Ned Carfax is here from Boston—­I saw her for a moment at the hotel she’s been here investigating for nearly three days, she tells me.  I’ll have her send you suffrage literature at once, if you’ll give me your address.”

“You want a vote?” asked Janet, curiously, gazing at the pearl earrings.

“Certainly I want one.”

“Why?”

“Why?” repeated Mrs. Brocklehurst.

“Yes.  You must have everything you want.”

Even then the lady’s sweet reasonableness did not desert her.  She smiled winningly, displaying two small and even rows of teeth.

“On principle, my dear.  For one reason, because I have such sympathy with women who toil, and for another, I believe the time has come when women must no longer be slaves, they must assert themselves, become individuals, independent.”

“But you?” exclaimed Janet.

Mrs. Brocklehurst continued to smile encouragingly, and murmured “Yes?”

“You are not a slave.”

A delicate pink, like the inside of a conch shell, spread over Mrs. Brocklehurst’s cheeks.

“We’re all slaves,” she declared with a touch of passion.  “It’s hard for you to realize, I know, about those of us who seem more fortunate than our sisters.  But it’s true.  The men give us jewels and automobiles and clothes, but they refuse to give us what every real woman craves —­liberty.”

Janet had become genuinely interested.

“But what kind of liberty?”