Rebel women

en at t

id the young man on t

whom he appeared to expect an an

man's friend, nudging him,

becoming an impossibility due to the stream of traffic struggling towards Whitehall. The thing she wanted to find was not down there, among the slipping horses, the swaying men and women, the moving lines of policemen; nor did it lurk in those denser blocks of humanity that marked a spot, here and there, where some resolute, battered woman was setting her face towards the gate of St

ps come to town, added a touch of magic relief to the dinginess of night. Then she came back again to the sharp realism of the foreground and found no will-o'-the-wisps there, only the lig

iendly woman with a baby, who was also standing up to ob

am looking at something that

us youth, with a wink at his companion, "I sh

ght," she said. "And yet, if I didn't hope to find what isn't

her, as she went swiftly down the steps of

of 'em!" commented t

thinned out towards Broad Sanctuary. A girl wearing the militant tricolour in her hat, brushed against her, whispered, "Ten been taken, th

ia Street, announced the eleventh arrest. A friendly artisan in working clothes swung her up till she stood be

pickpocket would have been spared. A swirling mass of people, at once interested and puzzled, sympathetic and uncomprehending, was swept along with her and round her. In her eyes was the same unemotional, detached look that filled the gaz

ies, if you please; there's no votes to be had in the middle of the roadway," said the jocular voice of t

came relentlessly on, successfully sweeping the pavement clear of the people whom he was exhorting with so much official reasonableness not to invade the roadway. He paused once to salute and to avoid two men, who, hav

is?" lamented the lady breathlessly. "And they s

e the devastating advance of the mounted policeman, sudde

d. "Stick to it! Votes for wo

allowed to proceed without their help, took up the words with enthusiasm; and the mud-bespat

o justify his impulse. "It's their pluck," he said. "If the unemployed ha

what she saw in a plaintive and disturbed tone. Unc

that. But all this-all this silly business of trying to get into the House of Commons, when they know beforehand that they can't possibly

war, and expect to keep your hair tidy too

e. "There's none of th

he shuddered with distaste as another mounted officer came sidling through the crowd, pursuing another hunted rebel woman, who gave way only inch by inch, watching her opportunity to face once more towards the locked gate of liberty. Evidently, she had not yet given sufficient proof of her unalterable purpose to have earned the mercy of arres

of war in that!" cried the woma

oice travelled to the ear of the other woman, still clinging to the railings with the artisan. She glanced round at him swiftly

e cowardice, same stupidity and beastliness all round. The women here are fighting for something big; that's the only difference. Oh, there's another, of course; th

ing at him curiously. "Oh, but of course you can't mean that real

, because in war you merely practise the arts of peace rather badly, such as baking and washing, and cooking and digging, and travelling about. On the spot it is

hey?" said the woman's husband breezily. "Thi

rs. "They wouldn't bring out six thousand police to arrest thirteen me

ot there only to

ht exclusively round an idea. If thirteen women batter at the gates of the House of Commons, you don't smash the idea by arresting the thirteen women, which could

he pavement and lurc

untry coming to?" he babbled; and

the woman's husband hurriedly; and the t

eyes looked after them. "He s

, too," remarked the artisan in a sociable m

ll this, I mean, that the ordinary person calls a failure because we don't succeed i

ding to-night, in which things that mattered were given their true proportions, and important scruples of a lifetime dwindled to nothingness, gave her a fresh and a whimsical insight int

isplay of unusual perception, seemed equally

swered. "That's Greek mythology, isn

sies that Agamemnon is going to be murdered-as we warn the Prime Minister when we are coming to see him-they pretend not to see what she is driving at, because if they did, they would have to do something. And then, when her prophecy comes true and he is murdered-of course, the analogy ends here, because we are not

reed her new f

d her husband, they find plenty to say because there is a woman to be blamed, though they never blamed Agamemnon for doing far worse th

the women," said the artisan, grasping

ildings known to a liberty-loving nation as the People's House. The gentlemen, who still stood in interested groups behind the barred gates of it, found the prospect less entertaining now that the action had been removed beyond the range of easy vision; and some of the bolder ones ventured out into the hollow square, formed by an unbroken line

against a barrier that had been set up against them both ever since the world grew civilized. There was not a friend near, when she nodded to the artisan and slipped down from her temporary resting-place. The respectable and sympathetic portion of the crowd was cut off from her, away up towards Whitehall, whither it had followed the twelfth

e man, giving her a helping hand. "Don't advise you to t

a second or two on the fringe of the tumult and confusion. Her momen

he told him. "I am the t

t near the edge of the pavement where t

murmured. "I don't like to think

n women, granted a few hours' freedom in return for a word of honour, had gone to their homes, proudly conscious of having once more vindicated the invincibility of their cause; and some five or six hundred gentlemen had been able

to the other, who had just made these observations a

the price of victory," answered t