"I admire your summary of the situation," I said. "You've only omitted one point. In a trial of strength between man and woman, man is still the stronger."

"And woman the more resourceful."

"Perhaps."

"She's certainly the more ruthless," Joyce answered, as she finished her coffee and drew on her gloves.

"War _a outrance_," I commented as we left the dining-room. "And what after the war?"

"When we've got the vote...." she began.

"Napoleon and the capture of London," I murmured.

"Oh well, you don't think I go in for a thing unless I'm going to win, do you? When we get the vote, we shall work to secure as large a share of public life as men enjoy, and we shall put women on an equality with men in things like divorce," she added between closed teeth.

"Suppose for the sake of argument you're beaten? I imagine even Joyce Davenant occasionally meets with little checks?"

"Oh yes. When Joyce was seven, she wanted to go skating, and her father said the ice wouldn't bear and she mustn't go. Joyce went, and fell in and nearly got drowned. And when she got home, her father was very angry and whipped her with a crop."

"Well?"

"That's all. Only--he said afterwards that she took it rather well, there was no crying."

I wondered then, as I have always wondered, whether she in any way appreciated the seriousness of the warfare she was waging on society.

"A month in the second division at Holloway is one thing...." I began.

"It'll be seven years' penal servitude if I'm beaten," she interrupted. Her tone was innocent alike of flippancy and bravado.

"Forty votes aren't worth that. I've got three, so I ought to know."

Joyce's eyes turned in the direction of her sister who was coming out of the dining-room with Aintree.

"_She's_ worth some sacrifice."

"You couldn't make her lot easier if you had every vote in creation.

She's up against the existing divorce law, and that's buttressed by every Church, and every dull married woman in the country. You're starting conversation at the wrong end, Joyce."

Her little arched eyebrows raised themselves at the name.

"Joyce?" she repeated.

"You were Joyce when last we met."

"That was twenty years ago."

"It seems less. I should like to blot out those years."

"And have me back in nursery frocks and long hair?"

"Better than long convict frocks and short hair," I answered with laborious antithesis.

"Then I haven't improved?"

"You're perfect--off duty, in private life."

"I have no private life."

"I've seen a glimpse of it to-night."

"An hour's holiday. I say good-bye to it for good this evening when I say good-bye to you."

"But not for good?"

"You'll not want the burden of my friendship when war's declared. If you like to come in as an ally...?"

"Do you think you could convert me?"

She looked at me closely.

"Yes."

I shook my head.

"What'd you bet?" she challenged me.

"It would be like robbing a child's money-box," I answered. "You're dealing with the laziest man in the northern hemisphere."

"How long will you be in England?"

"I've no idea."

"Six months? In six months I'll make you the Prince Rupert of the militant army. Then when we're sent to prison--Sir Arthur Roden's a friend of yours--you can arrange for our cells to be side by side, and we'll tap on the dividing wall."

I had an idea that our unsociable prison discipline insisted on segregating male and female offenders. It was not the moment, however, for captious criticism.

"If I stay six months," I said, "I'll undertake to divorce you from your militant army."

"The laziest man in the northern hemisphere?"

"I've never found anything worth doing before."

"It's a poor ambition. And the militants want me."

"They haven't the monopoly of that."

Joyce smiled in spite of herself, and under her breath I caught the word "Cheek!"