Winding Paths Part 20

"Most unsociable," said Hal, "but it would please Brother Dudley."

"Never mind Brother Dudley now." The voice was very attractive. "Mind me, instead. I'm very dull here, and I hate driving in the dark. My chauffeur is down with the 'flu', and I couldn't beg, borrow, nor steal any one else's."

"Are you a doctor?" she asked, taking her seat beside him.

"Why do you think I should be a doctor?" tucking a warm rug cosily round her, in a leisurely fas.h.i.+on.

"Only because I thought perhaps you were obliged to go, in spite of your chauffeur being ill."

"I was obliged to go, but I'm not a doctor."

They started forward again, but the pace was noticeably slower.

"I hope you don't mind going slowly, it is so difficult to steer in te dark?"

Hal was perfectly aware he had not found it so difficult before, but she only said lightly:

"Anything to keep safe from another mishap. I might have to walk home next time."

"Or stay at an inn with me!..." with an amused laugh. "What would Brother Dudley do then?"

"Have brain fever first, I expect, then creeping paralysis, then sleeping sickness."

He chuckled with enjoyment, and presently remarked: "I don't think you treat Dudley respectfully enough if he is an affectionate elder brother."

"Oh, yes I do. I sort of leaven the lump. Without me he'd be just a clever prig; he couldn't help it. With me he is only better than most men; and his lofty ideas don't get top-heavy, because I keep him in touch with commonplace humanity."

"Why is he better than most men? What is the matter with the rest of us?"

"The rest of you don't bother to have lofty ideas at all, much less struggle to live up to them."

You are a little sweeping. Do you like men to have lofty ideas, and be priggish?"

"They don't necessarily go together. It's only Dudley who thinks all the rest of the world ought to be good too."

"And don't you agree with him?"

"I look at things from a different standpoint. I admire him tremendously, and feel his superiority; but it is more natural to me to take things as I find them and make the best of them as they are."

"You are evidently a very sensible young lady. You can find a warm spot in your heart even for a sinner, for instance!"

"I rather like them," and she gave a low laugh.

"Of course you do, if you're a true woman."

"Oh, I'm a true woman right enough. I like a man to have a spice of the devil in him; and I like playing with fire; and I love getting into mischief."

"Capital!... you and I must be friends. I'm beginning to think it was a lucky mishap for me at all events."

"I haven't finished my qualifications yet. You may change your mind.

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?"