Then she settled to examine the programme, shrinking behind it and looking as miserable as she could.Misery became less hard to play-act as she was forced to listen as all that was unhealthy about the modern age was laid at the feet of militant womanhood.
“Indeed, it is not taking things too far to speculate that the governing powers of the state itself would be weakened by this proposed flooding of the voting booths with feckless females.”
The program in Penny’s hands quivered.
One can only hope,she thought fervently.
A moment later, and the seat beside her was cast into shadow.
“Excuse me, is this seat empty?”a familiar-looking girl—fair and hearty, the sort who knew about hounds and horses—whispered.
Penny nodded gratefully and the girl sat, smoothing her skirts and glancing sideways at her.
The lady left the stage.Penny joined the applause in relief.
“I say, you’re Penny Fairweather, aren’t you?”the fair girl said, over the din as the peeress left the stage, loosening the vengeful mink.“We were in that class together, at the university.We both dropped out.Funny, isn’t it?”
Penny scrutinised the girl.Miraculously, she remembered her name.“Diana!How lovely to see you here.And how lovely of you to come over, when I was feeling so terribly alone.”
“Oh, that was my brother, Nigel—he said I should come over.”
Penny tried not to sit up as if the hunting horn had sounded.Diana darted a glance back at her party.
“Wouldn’t you like to come sit with us, after the interval?”she suggested kindly.
Penny followed her gaze to a big young man, very fresh and scrubbed, who waved a programme at them and beamed.He seemed to be with a group.
Oh, this was getting better by the moment.
“They wouldn’t mind?”Penny asked meekly.
“Not at all!”
“What a dear you are!”Penny said, giving Diana’s hand a squeeze as a quivery soprano began to sing ‘Jerusalem’ in mournful tones.“I’d almost given up hope.”
As Diana’s brother took her into the supper room, Penny reminded herself that she mustn’t expect to fall in with the Athelney group itself at once.She would get as many useful introductions tonight as she could, and pursue the most promising ones later.
Diana’s brother was a garrulous type and seemed to enjoy introducing her to his male friends.She had them wrapped around her finger in no time.The only one of this family circle who hadn’t crumbled like a biscuit before Penny’s onslaught was a big brute of a cousin—dismissively introduced—who used the supper time to get progressively sozzled.
As she sipped punch, Penny noted attention from another quarter: a slight, sparsely moustached individual with very sharp eyes who stood at the margins, smoking and watching her in a crawly sort of way.
It was the type of gaze Penny understood only too well.It made her long for her umbrella with its lovely little point, now somewhere at the bottom of the Thames Estuary.Never mind—she had a set of lovely steel claws in her mackintosh pocket for emergencies.
“Yes, our race has never been in a worse corner you know,” a male relative of Diana’s was telling her earnestly.
“But surely the Ottomans at the gates of Vienna,” someone else in the party murmured.
“No, old chap,” the other retorted, “because you see, Britain may have conquered half the world, but it’s a pyrrhic victory at best when we simply throw open the gates for a Trojan horse jammed full of the lesser races.And that’s why it’s frightfully important—well—for you ladies to do your part, don’t you know.”
Self-conscious laughter from the ladies of the party.
“Of courseIthink you’d all make perfectlycharmingprime ministers and postmasters,“ he went on, smiling, “especially you, Miss Fairweather!—but where would the race be then?After all, we chaps can’t doyourpart!”
“I never thought about it in that light,” Penny said solemnly, somehow managing to keep her countenance.“How terribly interesting and intellectual you all are—not like my usual friends at all.How I love to hear you all talk.”
When Diana’s brother went to get her a glass of punch, the brutish cousin appeared without warning.
“I’veseenyou,“ he said, red-faced, waving his finger at her.
