Part 21 (1/2)
”I'll give you a sporting chance to run away.”
”I'm not very likely to run away from you, I think.”
They had reached the well-lit roads now, and he turned and looked keenly into her face, partly to see if by chance he might recognise her, and partly to get a cleaner idea of her appearance.
”You look to nice to be a suffragette,” he said.
”Such rot! Do I look too nice to care whether working women and outcast women are fairly treated or not?”
”That's only the bluff of the movement. What they really want is power and notoriety.”
Hal tossed her head.
”You're a positive worm,” she told him frankly.
Again his engaging laugh rang out.
”That's a nice thing to say to a man who has brought you all the way from Millington to London, and helped you out of a tight corner.”
The white teeth gleamed suddenly.
”I'll qualify it if you like, and call you a cross between a worm and a brick.”
”Not good enough. I won't pa.s.s the worm at all. If you don't retract it wholly I shall put you down at the first tram, and let you get back to Bloomsbury on your own.”
”I'll retract, if you'll tell me who you are.”
”I'll tell you afterwards.”
She shook her head.
”Perhaps you are going to Downing Street even now, to plan a crus.h.i.+ng blow to the Cause.”
”I am going to Downing Street, but it has nothing to do with the Cause, as you call it.”
It was her turn to glance round, but she only saw that he was clean-shaven, and somewhat lined. His grey, quizzical eyes met hers full of humour.
”I wonder who we both are?” he said.
”I can easily tell you who I am, as I'm so comfortably of no account.
My name is Harriet Pritchard, and my friends call me Hal. I live with Brother Dudley, who is an architect; and if the world isn't any the better for me, I hope it is sometimes a little gayer, that's all.”
”And are you engaged to the young man whose steering gear went wrong?”
”No; I am not engaged to any one at all.”
”Very nearly perhaps?”
”No; not even within sight of it. Being engaged, and always having to go out with the same pal, would bore me to tears.”