"He will arrive in a fortnight," she explained, bending her black brows in quite a tragic way, "and has a family of four girls. I hope to interest them all in the movement."
"Votes for Women?" asked Carrington, who found Sophy very amusing, since she knew little and asserted much.
"Of course. What other Movement is there?"
"Well, you see, Miss Tollart, Women's Rebellion isn't the only pebble on the beach. Humanity has other interests also."
"Then it shouldn't have," retorted Sophy daringly. "Until women have votes, the world will never be put right."
"Things have gone on very well so far," ventured Rupert, only to be crushed.
"How can you say so, Mr. Hendle, when there's nothing but war and bankruptcy, and silly football matches, and smart society, and----"
"Sophy! Sophy! that's enough to go on with," cried Dorinda, smiling. "Don't give us too much to think about."
"You never think at all, Dorinda. You are fainthearted about our votes."
"I don't think you'll get them by destroying property and having hunger strikes," replied Dorinda, with a shrug. "What do you say, Kit?"
Kit blushed and wriggled, for Sophy's eye was on him. "I don't say anything you know. I never do. The motor business takes up all my attention." Then he hurriedly changed the subject, lest his lady-love should fall foul of him for his shirking. "I hope Sophy will gain her ends easier in Australia."
"I'm not going to Australia, Kit. I told you that and I told your mother."
"Mrs. Beatson," said Carrington, pricking up his ears. "Does she want you to go to Australia, Miss Tollart?"
"That's news to me," observed Hendle, with a start.
"It's news to all of us," put in Kit, dismally. "The worst of mother is that you never know what she'll be up to next. The other day she came to me and said that she soon hoped to inherit an annuity of two hundred a year and intended to go to Australia. She wants Sophy and me to come with her."
Hendle, Dorinda and Carrington exchanged glances. "Who is leaving this annuity to your mother?" asked Rupert, guessing the source of the windfall.
"She didn't say," replied Kit, "some old aunt, I fancy. But I don't want to go with mother. She and Sophy never get on well together."
"How can we when she wants everyone to bow down to her?" said Miss Tollart, who hated Mrs. Beatson thoroughly. "I'm not of the bowing-down sort. And when I marry, I want my house to myself."