"Dick Bruce will write an astounding, weird novel, and bound into fame," Lorraine had remarked to her companion, and away somewhere down in Kent, an hour or so earlier, Dick had remarked to Hal as they spun along:
"I've got the maddest idea for a novel you ever heard of. I'm going to make the hit of next season."
"I hope it's not about babies," said Hal, thinking of his doggerel.
"Yes, it is - babies and vegetables."
"Oh, nonsense. You can't make a novel out of babies and vegetables."
"You see if I can't. The vegetables are all to be endowed with life, and of course the scene of my tale will be the vegetable kingdom."
"And where do the babies come in?"
"The babies wil represent mankind."
"I never heard such rot. Why should mankind be represented by babies?
Much better let them be represented by green peas or gooseberries."
"Not at al . Mankind can only properly be represented by babies; mankind being in its infancy."
"But it isn't. It's much older than vegetables."
"It is not. Man was made last, and instead of developing into a reasonable, rational object, like a potato or a cabbage, he has strayed away into al manner of wild side-issues, and is still nothing but a very much perplexed infant."
"And do you propose to try and help him to emulate the reasonable, rational condition of the potato and cabbage?"
"I propose to show him his inferiority to these delectable creations."
"Then if he has any sense he wil just duck you in the Serpentine and make you apologise. Personally I consider myself anything but a baby, and far superior to any of the cabbage tribe."
"Ah!..." he cried gleeful y. You are actually proving my theory. I can't explain now, but just wait til that book is written."
"Are you taking rooms at Colney Hatch while you do it?"
"I have thought about it. You show more understanding in that remark than in any of the others."
"It doesn't require much effort of understanding to think that out. Is the onion or the mangel-wurzel to be your hero?"
"You are unsympathetic. I shal not tell you any more."
"Not at al . I am most interested real y. I should make the cabbage your hero, and the onion your heroïne, then she can weep on his breast."
They swerved violently, and with a little gasp she added, "All the same, I've no desire to weep on the highway underneath a motor-car.
What _are_ you doing?"
"I don't know. The steering-wheel seems a bit odd."
They stopped to examine the wheel, and almost immediately, out of the gathering darkness behind shot another car, hooting violently to them to get out of the way. Unable to stop the oncoming car in time, Dick tried to move aside, failed, and in less than a minute the newcomer, in spite of brakes swiftly adjusted, crashed into them, smashing their lamp, and badly damaging the back near-side wheel of the car.
"Well, I'm blowed!" said Dick, "that's the only moment in the whole day you shouldn't have been on that particular square yard of the entire globe. Any other moment, I could either have moved aside or stopped you in time."
The occupant of the other car, who was driving alone, sprang out and came briskly forward.
"What the devil!..." he began, then noticed the lady, and stopped short.
"It was certainly the devil," said Dick, ruefully examining his battered wheel, and "I always thought he was credited with the deceny to look after his own. How have you fared?"
"Well, he seems to have looked after me all right," in a cheery voice;
"there's nothing that wil prevent my going on to town. But if you wil pardon my curiosity, why take root in the middle of the road and ask for trouble?"
Hal's smile suddenly flashed out in the lamp-light irresistibly.
"It's a new theory about vegetables being wiser than mankind, but of course we took root too soon."
A pair of grey eyes looked quizzical y at her in the darkness, discerning only the gleam of a white face in a close-fitting bonnet, and the flash of white, even teeth.
"The blasted steering wheel wouldn't act," said Dick. "We had just that second slowed down to examine it. You might have come along here to al eternity and not have been as inopportune.""
"You take it very well." The big-coated apparition, in motor-cap with the ear-flaps down, and motor-goggles, and the suggestion of a rotundity about the centre, was not at all engaging to look at, but he had a charming voice.
"I'm taking it so ill that I daren't express myself out loud," said Hal. "What in the world are we to do? Is there a train anywhere near?"
"I'm afraid not, but there is a decent enough inn close by."
"An inn isn't much use to me." She paused, then added solemnly: "I've got a strait-laced brother."
Hal's voice was rather deep and rich for a woman, and it had a dangerous al urement in the darkness. The stranger took off his goggles and tried again to see her face, while Dick took a minute stock of his damage.
"Well," he suggested, a little daringly, "if he is able to chaperone you at the inn himself? -"
"He isn't," said Hal; "he's somewhere east of Piccadil y, studying Phoenician Architecture, and the herringbone pattern on antique masonry."
"Oh, damn!" intercepted Dick, "the old man has let me down badly this time; this car won't move before daybreak. It means a red light burning al night, and we must go to the inn."
"But, Dick," Hal exclaimed in quick alarm. "How can I let Dudley know?
He'll have a fit at the idea of my being out all night like that."
"He ought to be too thankful you are safe and sound to mind anything else."
"But he won't; because he is always grumbling at my not getting back before dark. There must surely be a train from somewhere?"
Her voice had grown seriously alarmed as she began to realise what sort of a fix she was in. The stranger came forward to lend his aid to the inspection, and after a cursory glance added his verdict to Dick's.
"You won't move her before morning; and there are no trains anywhere near here on Sunday night. I am going to London myself; you must let me give you both a lift."
Dick stood up with an air of finality.
"I can't leave her. She isn't exactly al my own, you see. I must stay at the inn, but if you wouldn't mind taking Miss Pritchard..." he looked at Hal a little anxiously.
"I shal be delighted," came the brisk response from the stranger.
Hal for once was nonplussed, but her habitual humour reasserted itself.
"I don't know which Dudley wil think the most dreadful," she remarked comical y, "for me to stay at the inn unchaperoned, or motor back with a stranger. I seem to be fairly between the devil and the deep sea."
The men laughed, but Dick made the decision.
"You had better go back," he said. "He will at least have you safe under lock and key by midnight that way and not lie awake worrying al night himself."
"Then let me run you to the inn first," said the stranger, and after fixing his red lights, Dick went off with them in search of help to make the car safer for the night.
A little later the stranger's motor turned Londonwards with two occupants only, one in front and one behind. After a few miles he stopped.
"Won't you come and sit in front?" It seems so unsociable to travel like this."
"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 dul 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 fashion.
"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 al , 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 al 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 wel . 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 tel just how the information struck him.
Hal gave another laugh.
"A working young lady! How awful! I shal not be friends with you if you call me anything so dreadful as that."
"What do you cal 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, sitl with the new note in his voice:
"And I suppose you want the vote?"
Mental y he was wondering whether, if she knew who he was, she would attack him physically or insist upon writing in chalk al 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 general y, and if that is the only way to get it, I hope it wil 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?"
"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 wel -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 real y 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 al 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 pass the worm at al . If you don't retract it whol y 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 crushing 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 ful of humour.
"I wonder who we both are?" he said.
"I can easily tel you who I am, as I'm so comfortably of no account.
My name is Harriet Pritchard, and my friends cal 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 al ."
"And are you engaged to the young man whose steering gear went wrong?"
"No; I am not engaged to any one at al ."
"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."
"I see." There was a note of satisfaction in his voice. In the brighter lights he had observed that the warm ulster clung to a very shapely figure, and covered a pair of fine shoulders, and even if she was not pretty, for he could not be quite sure on the point, she was certainly very attractive, and had a delightful y engaging smile.
"I wonder if there is room for another in the ranks."
Something a little condescending in the way he made the suggestion nettled Hal.
"Aren't you a rather old?" she asked.
Again his ready laugh rang out.
"I'll give frankness for frankness. I am forty-eight."
"Goodness!... and I am twenty-five."
"Is that al ? Then allow me to say you are a remarkably clever young woman."
"A good many breadwinners are; they have to be. Some of them are too clever even for Cabinet Ministers," and she chuckled joyfully.
In the darkness, she did not see the quick gleam in his eyes, as he retorted:
"I don't think many Cabinet Ministers have the luck to meet a breadwinner who is as attractive as she is clever."
"And if the did," sarcastical y, "I suppose they would drop the notoriety yarn and find time to consider whether the working woman is treated fairly or not. The weakness in her defence at present seems solely that not enough pretty women make up her defenders. Bah! You all ought to have kittens to play with, and nanny goats and wool y lambs."
"I don't know why you include me. What have I done?"
"Well, if you're going to Downing Street?"
"Why shouldn't I be going to a dinner-party?"
She turned and glanced up with a daredevil light in her eyes that delighted him.
"I not only think you a member of Parliament, but, judging by your fatuous air of superiority, I should imagine you are positively a ful -blown Cabinet Minister."
He busied himself with his steering wheel, while little chuckles of enjoyment came out of his muffler.
"And supposing I were?" he said at last.
"Goodness!... I hope you're not?... " in quick alarm.
"Why do you hope so?"
"Oh, I don't know, except that I've never known a Cabinet Minister in my life, and I never expected, if I met one, to treat him like... like
-"
"An old and fatuous lump of superiority!" with a gay laugh. "Wel , little woman, you needn't be in the least sorry. I don't know that I've ever enjoyed a motor ride more. When wil you come again?"
"_Are_ you a Cabinet Minister?..." she asked helplessly.
"Well, I hope you won't disapprove, for I have to plead guilty to being Sir Edwin Crathie."
"Sir Edwin Crathie?" in abashed tones.
"They cal ed me Squib at school." He said it in a whimsical, humorous voice, looking down at her with very friendly eyes.
But Hal had grown silent.
"I'm afraid by your manner you do disapprove?"
"It is certainly embarrassing. I would rather you had been... well, just any one."
"You'll get used to it," stil with the twinkle in his eyes. "In the meantime you haven't answered my question. When wil you come for another ride?"
She did not reply, and he leaned a little closer.
"You will come again?"
"I'm afraid Brother Dudley wouldn't like it"; and then they both laughed.
"Wil you come in?" as they drew up before her door.
"I'm afraid I haven't time; and besides, I'm a little afraid of Brother Dudley. I only feel equal to the Prime Minister this evening."
She held out her hand.
"Well, thank you ever so much. You saved me from a dreadfully tight corner."
"The thanks should be al mine; you saved me from unmitigated boredom.
I curses my chauffeur for going down with 'flu' to-day, but now I fee ready to raise his salary for it."
He had pul ed of his thick motoring-glove, and was holding her hand in a firm, lingering clasp, which she quickly cut short, tucking both her hands into her ulster pockets, and standing up very straight and slim in the lamplight.
"I'll have to go though the confessional now," she told him, "and sit on the stool of repentance for supper."
"No; don't repent; come again." He moved nearer.
"I'm naturally a very busy man, and I can't make engagements offhand, but I can easily get at you on the telephone. Wil you come some afternoon, about half-past four?"
"I think you are very rash. How do you know I shall not bring the colours, and wave them wildly down the street, shouting 'Votes for Women'?"
"I'll risk it. Wil you come?"
She moved away, latch-key in hand.
"I don't know. I won't promise, anyway. Good-bye, and my best thanks."
There was a rush of light through an open door, a last bright smile, and he found himself alone in the street.