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 And that’s what’s the ruin of all these organizations. That’s why the Suffragists have never done anything all these years. What’s the point of drawing-room meetings and bazaars? You want to have ideas, Mary; get hold of something big; never mind making mistakes, but don’t niggle. Why don’t you throw it all up for a year, and travel?—see something of the world. Don’t be content to live with half a dozen people in a backwater all your life. But you won't,” he concluded.

“I've rather come to that way of thinking myself—about myself, I mean,” said Mary, surprising him by her acquiescence. “I should like to go somewhere far away.”

For a moment they were both silent. Ralph then said: “But look here, Mary, you haven’t been taking this seriously, have you?” His irritation was spent, and the depression, which she could not keep out of her voice, made him feel suddenly with remorse that he had been hurting her.

“You won’t go away, will you?” he asked. And as she said nothing, he added, “Oh no, don’t go away.”

“I don’t know exactly what I mean to do,” she replied. She hovered on the verge of some discussion of her plans, but she received no encouragement. He fell into one of his queer silences, which seemed to Mary, in spite of all her precautions, to have reference to what she also could not prevent herself from thinking about—their feeling for each other and their relationship. She felt that the two lines of thought bored their way in long, parallel tunnels which came very close indeed, but never ran into each other.

When he had gone, and he left her without breaking his silence more than was needed to wish her good night, she sat on for a time, reviewing what he had said. If love is a devastating fire which melts the whole being into one mountain torrent, Mary was no more in love with Denham than she was in love with her poker or her tongs.