Patience’s indignation had worn itself out by bedtime. When Miss Merrien left her for the night she locked her door and spread her arms out with an exultant sense of freedom. She seemed to feel the ugly weight of the past two years fall from her, and to hear it go clattering down the quiet streets. Her sense of humour and the liveliness of her mind had saved her from morbidity at any time, although she had not escaped cynicism. She now felt that she could turn her back squarely on the past, that she was not a woman whose mistakes and dark experiences would corrode the brain and spirit, ruining present and future. She could not make the same mistake again; and it was better to have made it in early youth when the etchery of experience eats the copper of the ego more lightly. The future seemed to her to be full of infinite possibilities. She could be her own fastidious dreaming idealising self again. New friends dotted the dusk like stars. She felt ten years away from the man to whom she had nodded a careless good-bye that morning. A vague pleasurable loneliness assailed her, the instinct of plurality. Then she laughed suddenly and went to bed.

The next morning, at eight o’clock, after a cup of black coffee to stiffen her nerves, she presented herself in the evening room of the “Day.” Two men and a woman were writing at little tables. Mr. Steele in his shirt sleeves was at his desk, reading copy. She sat down, priding herself that her face was as impassive as his own. In a few moments he called her to his desk.

“You have read in the newspapers, I suppose, of this crusade of Dr. Broadhead, the fashionable Presbyterian clergyman, against the voting of Immigrants?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“Well, he is doing his best to get the women of New York to help him, and is holding his first meeting this morning in Cooper Union—eleven-thirty. One of our best men will go to report the addresses, but I want you to go and sit in the audience, and observe how many fashionable women are there, what they wear, and what degree of interest they appear to take in the proceedings. Above all, I want you to keep your eyes and ears open for any significant fact which may or may not appear. It usually does. That is all.—Well, what do you want?” This to the office boy.

Patience went slowly downstairs, feeling as if she had been sent out to discover the North Pole with a chart and a row-boat. When she reached Cooper Union, two hours later, and found herself for the moment an integer of one of the many phases of current history, she forgot the agonising travail of the “news sense,” and became so deeply interested that she observed the many familiar faces abstractedly, and, later, “faked” their costumes.

She hurried to her room before the meeting was over and wrote her “story.” It concluded thus:—

“Some four hundred women were present, at half-past eleven in the morning; the hour indicating that they were women of leisure, which in its turn presupposes the large measure of education and refinement, and a general superiority over the toiling millions. They were very enthusiastic. When Dr. Broadhead entered the applause was deafening. They interrupted him every few minutes. When he sat down, and Mr. Lionel Chambers came forward he, too, was warmly welcomed, for his popularity is well established. He smiled, and began something like this:—

“‘Ladies: Dr. Broadhead has left me little to say. I being somewhat versed in politics, however, in other words, in hard fighting with the enemy, he believes that I may be able to give you a little useful advice.’ (Applause and cries of ‘Yes! Yes!’) ‘Now, ladies, there are several points upon which I must ask your attention.’ (No man ever had more serious attention.) ‘I will check them off in detail. First of all, ladies, my advice to you is to—’ (every ear went forward)—‘is—to—pray.’

“He paused. There was an intense and disgusted silence, with the exception of one or two muttered exclamations of impatience. There were just four hundred women in the city of New York who were beyond that sort of thing. He saw his mistake at once, blundered on confusedly, recovered himself, and gave them much sound, practical advice which they received with every mark of gratitude.”