They broke all the windows they could in
the fronts of the Government offices and at the residences of
Ministers of State. Vivie found herself shadowed everywhere by
Bertie Adams though she had given him no orders to join the crowd,
indeed had begged him to mind his own business and go home. "This
_is_ my business," he had said curtly, and for once masterfully, and
she gave way. Though Vivie for her own reasons carried no hammer or
stone and as one of the principal organizers of the militant
movement had been requested by the inner Council of the W.S.P.U. to
keep out of prison as long as possible, she could not help cheering
on the boldest and bravest in the mild violence of their protest. To
the angry police she seemed merely an impertinent young man, hardly
worth arresting when they could barely master the two hundred and
twenty-three arch offenders with glass-breaking weapons in their
hands. So a constable contented himself with marching on her feet
with all his weight and thrusting his elbows violently into her
breast.
She well-nigh fainted with the pain; in fact would have fallen in
the crowd but for the interposition of Adams who carried her out of
it to the corner of Parliament Street, where he pounced on one of
the many taxis that crawled about the outskirts of the shouting,
swaying crowd, sure of a fare from either police or escaping
Suffragists.
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