THE NEW MACHIAVELLI

3

Later on in that year the women began a new attack. Day and night,

and all through the long nights of the Budget sittings, at all the

piers of the gates of New Palace Yard and at St. Stephen's Porch,

stood women pickets, and watched us silently and reproachfully as we

went to and fro. They were women of all sorts, though, of course,

the independent worker-class predominated. There were grey-headed

old ladies standing there, sturdily charming in the rain; battered-

looking, ambiguous women, with something of the desperate bitterness

of battered women showing in their eyes; north-country factory

girls; cheaply-dressed suburban women; trim, comfortable mothers of

families; valiant-eyed girl graduates and undergraduates; lank,

hungry-looking creatures, who stirred one's imagination; one very

dainty little woman in deep mourning, I recall, grave and steadfast,

with eyes fixed on distant things. Some of those women looked

defiant, some timidly aggressive, some full of the stir of

adventure, some drooping with cold and fatigue. The supply never

ceased. I had a mortal fear that somehow the supply might halt or

cease. I found that continual siege of the legislature

extraordinarily impressive-infinitely more impressive than the

feeble-forcible "ragging" of the more militant section. I thought

of the appeal that must be going through the country, summoning the

women from countless scattered homes, rooms, colleges, to

Westminster.

I remember too the petty little difficulty I felt whether I should

ignore these pickets altogether, or lift a hat as I hurried past

with averted eyes, or look them in the face as I did so. Towards

the end the House evoked an etiquette of salutation.