It was a brisk morning in November, and Mr. and Mrs. Altham, who breakfasted at half-past eight in the summer, and nine in the winter, were seated at breakfast, and Mr. Altham was thinking how excellent was the savour of grilled kidneys. But he was not sure if they were really wholesome, and he was playing an important match at golf this afternoon. Perhaps two kidneys approached the limits of wisdom. Besides, his wife was speaking of really absorbing things; he ought to be able to distract his mind from the kidneys he was proposing to deny himself, under the sting of so powerful a counter-interest. “And to think that Mrs. Ames isn’t going to be a Suffragette any more!” she said. “I met Mrs. Turner when I took my walk just now, and she told me all about it.”
A word of explanation is necessary. The fact was that Swedish exercises, and a short walk on an empty stomach, were producing wonderful results in Riseborough at the moment, especially among its female inhabitants. They now, instead of meeting in the High Street before lunch, to stand about on the pavement and exchange news, met there before breakfast, when on these brisk autumn mornings it was wiser not to stand about. They therefore skimmed rapidly up and down the street together, in short skirts and walking boots. Rain and sunny{318} weather, in this first glow of enthusiasm, were alike to them, and they had their baths afterwards. These exercises gave a considerable appetite for breakfast, and produced a very pleasant and comfortable feeling of fatigue. But this fatigue was a legitimate, indeed, a desirable effect, for their systems naturally demanded repose after exertion, and an hour’s rest after breakfast was recommended. Thus this getting up earlier did not really result in any actual saving of time, though it made everybody feel very busy, and they all went to bed a little earlier.
Mr. Altham found he got on very nicely without these gymnastics, but then he played golf after lunch. It was no use playing tricks with your health if it was already excellent: you might as well poke about in the works of a punctual watch. He had already had a pretty sharp lesson on this score, over the consumption of sour milk. It had made him exceedingly unwell, and he had sliced his drive for a fortnight afterwards. Just now he weaned his mind from the thoughts of kidneys, and gave it in equitable halves to marmalade and his wife’s conversation. To enjoy either, required silence on his part.
“She went to a meeting yesterday,” said Mrs. Altham, “so Mrs. Turner told me, and said that though she had the success of the cause so deeply at heart as ever, she would not be able to take any active part in it. That is a very common form of sympathy. I suppose, from what one knows of Mrs. Ames, we might have expected something of the sort. Do you remember her foolish scheme of asking wives without husbands, and husbands without wives? I warned you at the time, Henry, not to take any notice of it, because I was sure it would{319} come to nothing, and I think I may say I am justified. I don’t know what you think.”
Mr. Altham, by a happy coincidence, had finished masticating his last piece of toast at this moment, and was at liberty to reply.
“I do not think anything about it at present,” said he. “I daresay you are quite right, but why?”
Mrs. Altham gave a little shrill laugh. The sprightliness at breakfast produced by this early walk and the exercises was very marked.
“I declare,” she said, “that I had forgotten to tell you. Mrs. Ames wrote to ask us both to dine on Saturday. I had quite forgotten! There is something in the air before breakfast that makes one forgetful of trifles. It says so in the pamphlet. Worries and household cares vanish, and it becomes a joy to be alive. I don’t think we have any engagement. Pray do not have a third cup of tea, Henry. Tannin combines the effects of stimulants and narcotics. A cup of hot water, now—you will never regret it. Let me see! Yes, dinner at the Ames’ on Saturday, and she isn’t a Suffragette any longer. As I said, one might have guessed. I daresay her husband gave her a good talking-to, after the night when she threw the water at the policeman. I should not wonder if there was madness in the family. I think I heard that Sir James’ mother was very queer before she died!”
“She lived till ninety,” remarked Mr. Altham.
“That is often the case with deranged people,” said Mrs. Altham. “Lunatics are notoriously long-lived. There is no strain on the brain.”
“And she wasn’t any relation of Mrs. Ames,” continued Henry. “Mrs. Ames is related to the{320} Westbournes. She has no more to do with Sir James’ mother than I have to do with yours. I will take tea, my dear, not hot water.”
“You want to catch me up, Henry,” said she, “and prove I am wrong somehow. I was only saying that very likely there is madness in Mrs. Ames’ family, and I was going to add that I hoped it would not come out in her. But you must allow that she has been very flighty. You would have thought that an elderly woman like that could make up her mind once and for all about things, before she made an exhibition of herself. She thinks she is like some royal person who goes and opens a bazaar, and then has nothing more to do with it, but hurries away to Leeds or somewhere to unveil a memorial. She thinks it is sufficient for her to help at the beginning, and get all the advertisement, and then drop it all like cold potatoes.”
“Hot,” said Henry.
“Hot or cold: that is just like her. She plays hot and cold. One day she is a Suffragette and the next day she isn’t. As likely as not she will be a vegetarian on Saturday, and we shall be served with cabbages.”
“Major Ames went over to Sir James’ to shoot,—she wasn’t asked,” said Henry, reverting to a previous topic.
“There you are!” exclaimed Mrs. Altham. “That will account for her abandoning this husband and wife theory. I am sure she did not like that, she being Sir James&............