Julia, excited, and well content, ran up to her room. As she opened the door she was astonished to see Bridgit Herbert standing at the window, scowling at the tombstones.

“You! How jolly!” she cried, as Mrs. Herbert turned. “How did you trace me? I purposely left no word?—”

“You forget your maid—”

“What is the matter? You look— Sit down.”

“I’ve come north to see you. The devil is to pay.”

“The Militants haven’t disbanded—”

“Good lord, no. They’re all right. It’s I that have gone clean to the devil.”

“You?” Julia stared at her. Mrs. Herbert certainly looked worn, even haggard. The fresh color was no longer in her dark face, her black eyes were heavy as if with much wakefulness. Even her spirited nostrils hung limp.

“Do come out with it!” gasped Julia.

“I’m in love,” said Mrs. Herbert. And she sat down.

“Oh!” exclaimed Julia. And then she added thoughtfully, “What a bore.”

“Isn’t it? And I thought I was immune, having had the disease so hard the first time. But the young thirties! Oh, lord!”

“Can’t you get over it?”

“Can’t you imagine how I’ve tried? That’s the reason I look like this. It’s a wonder he doesn’t run when he sees me. But it’s no use. I’m done for.”

“What sort of a man can he be to bowl you over? Do I know him?”

“Possibly. He’s a cousin of Geoff’s, although I never met him till lately, as it happened. They weren’t friends, and he was away nearly all the time I was coruscating in society. His name’s Robert Maundrell; he’s also a cousin of Lord Barnstaple, who married that beautiful Californian. It was at their place, Maundrell Abbey, where I went for the Twelfth, that the mischief was done. I met him at Cannes, but he was clever enough to amuse me without rousing my suspicions; to interest me, and then make me miss him a bit. At just the right moment he reappeared—at Maundrell Abbey! Heaven! but it’s bad. After all I’ve gone through for the cause, after standing on my own two feet for years, not giving a hang if all the men on earth were exterminated—rather wishing they were! I feel like a slave. It’s hideous to feel that you no longer belong to yourself.”

“But you won’t chuck the cause?”

“Rather not. But the trouble is that I thought I was made on the same pattern as those women up in London, desexed, all brain and nerve and religious devotion to an ideal. And now I’m—Oh, lord! And to make matters worse I’m marrying a man who cares about as much for the cause as he does for Mohammedanism. Oh, damn! And I thought myself possessed of the true martyr’s fire. I wonder if you are?”

“Bridgit!” said Julia, with equal abruptness. “Be quite honest. Did you never think of this, never dream of falling in love once more—of the real thing?”

Mrs. Herbert stood up and thrust her hands into the pockets of her covert coat. For a moment she glared at Julia, then shrugged her shoulders. “Well—I don’t fancy I admitted it at the time—but I also fancy it was in the back of my head more or less. Oh—here goes—I used to wake up in the night and wonder in a sort of fury where he was—what are you laughing at?”

“Oh, I fancy we idiots are all alike.”

“So you’ve been through it, too? Good. But you’ll probably win out. You’ve got the ruthless will, like those others. Oh! I worship the very air they breathe. They are the true women of destiny, equipped at every point, a new sex. And I—the worst of it is, when I did give my fancy rein it was to imagine a man who would be a great intellectual force in the world, a great editor or statesman to whom men deferred, who would fight single-handed, if necessary, to give the vote to women. I shouldn’t have cared a bit if he had sprung from the people. Should have rather liked it, as I’d have felt the more consistent. But—well, we make ideals out of imported cloth, and then we marry our own sort. I fancy Nature takes a hand in manipulating our instincts. Oh, lord!” And she began pacing up and down the room.

“You haven’t told me anything about Mr. Maundrell. He can’t be a fool?—”

“Rather not!”

“What attracted you to him? I don’t fancy I ever met him?—”

“You’d remember him if you had. He’s beastly good-looking, and he’s travelled and explored, and is as well-read as any man I ever met. He went out as a volunteer in the South African war and got three medals, one with clasps. Now he’s standing for Parliament—at a by-election next week. Oh, he’s all right, as the Americans say, only he doesn’t care a hang for Suffrage?—”

“He’ll make you desert us—”

“No, he won’t. I may be an ass, as the man said in ‘The Liars,’ but I’m not a silly ass. If he were as bad as that, I’d have been strong enough to resist him. No, he’s big in all his ideas. He only exacts the promise that I shall take part in no more raids, run no further risk of gaol, and not make engagements that would separate us. Otherwise, I can speak in public, and give up every moment of my time to Suffrage when he is not at home. He will also vote for our bill when it comes up.”

“It’s not so bad.”

“Oh, it could be worse. But I wish I’d met him when I was eighteen, or had proved my strength by rooting this out, or had never met him at all. I’d have preferred the second, for I gloried in my strength. I’m not one of the chosen, like those women up there. That’s what rankles. I wonder if you are!”

She sat down abruptly and leaned forward. “I wonder? You’ve beauty. There’s the rub. They won’t let us alone. They give us the chance.”

“Tell me,” said Julia, hastily, “how did he ever make you consent? He must have had a difficult wooing.”

“He almost shook his fist in my face, if you will know; swore he’d have me if he had to beat me into submission—oh, worse! He didn’t frighten me, but he fascinated me. If the primal woman is born in you, there she is for good and all. I had the haunting sense that this man was my mate, the other half of me, and when a woman gets that idea into her head she’s done for. It’s more than passion, more than any longing for companionship. All sorts of subtle chords vibrate, inheritances from all the women, complex and simple, that have contributed to her brain cells. When those chords begin to hum you’re done for. I’m not one of the chosen, that’s all there is to it. I’ve got to marry and be happy.”

And then they both laughed.

In a moment Julia said grimly, “The only thing to do is to set your ideal of man so high that no mortal can fill it.”

“Rot. When the man comes along that can set those chords humming, ideals fly off in company with good resolutions. Now tell me ............