Part 3 (2/2)

Most of the women loiterers seemed to be the victims, either of their small unearned incomes, or of somebody else's unpunctuality. One of these, after stamping her feet in unison with mine for more than half an hour, asked me if I had seen a lady in a green hat. I think I had seen hundreds, which was not very helpful; but the enquiry made an opening, and I shook my box gently and seductively in her direction. She was quite affable, told me she had believed in woman suffrage all her life, and thought it an excellent idea for other people to stand out in the rain collecting money for it.

”It gives you a pinched look, and then people throw you something before they see what it is for,” she added genially.

Evidently my complexion had not taken her unawares in this way, for she made no effort to support the cause in which she had believed all her life. She had so many claims, she said. I understood what she meant when one of the claims, wearing a mountainous hat in emerald-green straw, bore down upon her with torrential apologies for being late, and carried her off to the shops.

”It's for something to do up my every-evening black, and you have such a good eye for colour,” was the cryptic remark I overheard, as they went.

In about half an hour they were back again, and the girl in the green mountain was dropping two-pence in my box. She smiled rather nicely, and on a sudden impulse I asked her what she had bought for the every-evening black.

She stared, laughed a little, and ended on a sigh. ”Nothing,” she confessed. ”Isn't it tragic?”

”It must be,” I tried to agree. I suppose I succeeded in sounding a human note, for she still lingered.

”I hope you'll get your vote soon, and not have to go on wasting your time like this,” she said.

”It isn't my vote particularly, or my waste of time,” I called after her. But she was gone, her ridiculous hat bobbing up and down in the crowd like a Chinese lantern on a stick; and I wondered if she would some day make a truce with time and save her soul alive.

Time, though a deadly murderer, does not succeed in killing all the people who are trying so hard to kill him; and hope, even for a serious cause, lurked sometimes in that stream of bored and idle pa.s.sers-by, who seemed so bent on cheating their nature out of everything it demanded of them. It was always a pleasant shock when women and girls, wearing the most preposterous hats and the most fearsome of purple-spotted veils, slid something into my hand and hurried on, trying to look as if they had done nothing of the kind. And my knowledge of things human played me entirely false over the expensive dowager in sable and velvet.

She had stood in front of the nearest shop window for some minutes, discussing with a patient companion the rival qualities of jet tr.i.m.m.i.n.g and gold braid. ”Jet lasts,” she observed ponderously.

”It does last,” agreed the companion.

”Perhaps that gold edging would look handsomer,” proceeded the old lady, a.s.sailed by sudden doubts.

”Oh, yes, it might,” said the companion hastily, adapting her tone.

”You are looking at the wrong one,” said the old lady bluntly. ”It isn't likely I should put a four-three edging on my best satin between-wrap.”

Then she veered round and saw me.

Naturally I expected something very cutting, the more so that a kindly supporter threw me a s.h.i.+lling just then from the top of an omnibus, and a money-box not being so handy as a tambourine, I spent the next few seconds grovelling in the snow at the lady's feet. When I came up again, successful but apprehensive, I found her smiling blandly.

”If I were ten years younger I should be out in the street fighting with you,” was the astonis.h.i.+ng remark that accompanied a handsome donation to the war chest.

”Do come, all the same,” I urged, caught by the lightning gleam in her little grey eye. But she shook her head and returned to the jet and the gold edging--a wicked waste of a warlike grey eye!

So the week drew to an end, and I was no longer to be numbered among those who are pa.s.sed by at the edge of the pavement. In my foolishness I thought it would be easy to remain on friendly terms with my fellow-hawkers of yesterday; and with that idea in my mind I took an early opportunity of returning to the spot and buying a halfpenny pink paper and a penny white paper and a blue air-ball and a bunch of daffodils.

I met with a chilly civility from them all, with the exception of the flower lady, who shamelessly overcharged me for the daffodils.

”Yes, lady, they are dear this morning; cost me that in the market, they did--thank you, lady, much obliged, I'm sure. Yes, it is cold for a body, sitting out here all day.”

That was all--from the friend and sister who had almost offered me her shawl, a week ago, because she saw me s.h.i.+vering.

The sun was s.h.i.+ning, and the snow had gone, and I suppose the patch of sky at the western end of the street was all right. But I had been put back in my place as a pa.s.ser-by; and neither sun nor sky belonged to me any longer.

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