The fortnight of
good feeding, of quiet nights and lazy days under her mother's roof
had done her much good. She was not quite so thin, the dark circles
under her grey eyes had vanished, and she found not only in herself
but even in the most middle-aged of her associates a delightful
spirit of tomboyishness in their swelling revolt against the Liberal
leaders. It was specially during the remainder of 1912 that Vivie
noted the enormous good which the Suffrage movement had done and was
doing to British women. It was producing a splendid camaraderie
between high and low. Heroines like Lady Constance Lytton
mingled as sister with equally heroic charwomen, factory girls,
typewriteresses, waitresses and hospital nurses. Women doctors of
Science, Music, and Medicine came down into the streets and did the
bravest actions to present their rights before a public that now
began to take them seriously. Debutantes, no longer quivering with
fright at entering the Royal Presence, modestly but audibly called
their Sovereign's attention to the injustice of Mr. Asquith's
attitude towards women, while princesses of the Blood Royal had
difficulty in not applauding. Many a tame cat had left the fire-side
and the skirts of an inane old mother (who had plenty of people to
look after her selfish wants) and emerged, dazed at first, into a
world that was unknown to her.
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