Part 20 (2/2)
I like all those sort of things, but at the same time I like the big things as well. Also I'm told I'm most annoyingly practical, and most irritatingly capable of taking care of myself, and never getting burnt, so to speak.”
”Who told you that?”
”I think it was some one at the office.”
”What office?”
She mentioned the name of one of the leading London papers.
”Oh, you're a working young lady, are you?” He asked the question with a new note in his voice, though it would have been difficult to tell just how the information struck him.
Hal gave another laugh.
”A working young lady! How awful! I shall not be friends with you if you call me anything so dreadful as that.”
”What do you call it?”
”Well, I think I like 'Breadwinner' best, as that is what I do it for - but I don't mind working woman.”
The stranger looked hard into the darkness a few moments, then he asked suddenly, sitll with the new note in his voice:
”And I suppose you want the vote?”
Mentally he was wondering whether, if she knew who he was, she would attack him physically or insist upon writing in chalk all over his car.
”I don't want it for myself, because I shouldn't know what to do with it, and I haven't much time to find out. But I want fair play for women-workers generally, and if that is the only way to get it, I hope it will come quickly.”
”What do you mean by fair play?”
”Just whatever is fair play. I don't think women ought to be making iron chains at Cradley Heath for a penny a yard, for instance, and that sort of thing. I think it is a slur on the men who govern the country that it is possible. If you were one of them, and drove about in this beautiful car, not caring twopence whether starving women were sweated or not, I should -” she hesitated.
”Well, what should you -”
Detecting the mysterious note in his voice, she added with mischievous, half-serious intent:
”I should want to scratch you, and bite you, and push you into the first available ditch, for a poor coward, who was afraid to take care of the interests of woman, in case she got too well able in the end to take care of herself - so there.”
He could not help laughing, and when he subsided she added:
”I suppose you are one.”
”Why do you suppose it?”
”Never mind. Are you?”
”You promise you won't scratch me and bite me?”
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