Viv smiled, and went to his doom.
"Just imagine, Basil," he said. "The sweet young person across the table
made more than I did last year! Four thousand pounds!"
"I'm too commercially successful to think I have any real genius," said
Poppy, complacently.
"And some small sum the same sweet young person will have to pay over to
the tax man," Basil observed.
Poppy raised her violet eyes.
"I don't intend to pay it," she said.
Vivian put down his glass.
"That's what Madge would call a 'bluff,'" he said, with his eyes on her.
"You'll be obliged to pay it, dearest. You know that."
"'Taxation without representation' is what it amounts to." Poppy's face
was dangerously agreeable. "The American colonies seceded, didn't they,
for something like that? I paid it last year, but I made up my mind then
I'd never do it again."
Basil was looking very uncomfortable.
"I gave you the privilege of your convictions," said Viv, stiffly. "Of
course, if that's your intention, there is nothing more to be said."
Poppy looked puzzled.
"But it _is_ wrong, isn't it?" she demanded. "Surely that's the a.b.c.
of the reason for the discontent of Englishwomen."
"The principle may not be entirely equitable. Few laws work equally well
for all." Vivian now, a little white about the lips. "But, such as it
is, it's the law of your country."
"I didn't choose my country, or make it's laws," Poppy said coldly. "I
have a right to protest; I'll not pay it."
Now, as I have said before, motives are seldom unmixed. I think what
Poppy meant to do was simply to register a protest, refuse to pay, make
a lot of fuss about it. If they sent her to jail, being the prominent
person she was--she was the Honourable Poppy, I think I forgot to say
that before--it would make a lot of feeling. She did not mind jail very
much. She'd been there twice. Then, having asserted her principles, she
could get sick or go on a hunger strike, and Vivian would pay the tax
and get her out.
Basil laughed with assumed cheerfulness.
"Then Viv is stuck for the tax," he said.
Vivian looked across the table and met Poppy's eyes.
"That's hardly what you are getting at, is it?" he asked. "Your protest
is against the imposition of the tax, isn't it? It's a matter of
principle, isn't it? My paying it wouldn't help."
"I have not asked you to pay it."
"As a matter of fact, I haven't the slightest intention of paying it,
Poppy. You put me in an absurd position, that's all."
We had finished dinner, and the men went up to the drawing room with
us. A funny thought struck Basil on the way up. He chuckled.
"Of course, Viv," he said, "if Poppy sticks to that, you'll have to do
something. There's the Husband's Liability Act. You're liable, you
know."
Basil is a barrister.
Well, we talked of other things and pretended not to notice Vivian's
strained eyes and Poppy's high color. She took me off after a time to
see the new studio, and it did not take me long to tell her what I
thought.
"It's absurd," I said. "Do you expect to break down iron bars by banging
a head against them?"
"It's my head," she said sulkily.
"Not at all. It's Vivian's. They will jail him."
"I didn't make the law."
"Like the man with the Ten Commandments at Guildford!" I retorted. "He
didn't make them, but you know where he said he'd go if he broke them.
By the way, Poppy, I've always meant to ask you, did you ever get a
retort ready in case the T. C. came up again?"
But the men came in just then, and I did not learn. It was rather a
ghastly evening. We were all most polite and formal and Basil took me
home. I told him about my house at home in the United States, and the
way I'd been treated, and having nothing at the end of a year but
plumber's bills and tax receipts.
"I'm glad you haven't any particular income," he said at last. "That's
one element of discord removed."
"I don't understand."
"Yes, you do," he said calmly. "You know exactly what I mean, and what I
hope and what I feel. I don't dare to say it, because if I start
I'll--Madge, I shall _not_ propose to you until my Uncle Egbert dies. I
don't want you until I can support you comfortably--that's a lie. I want
you damnably, all the time."
I do not remember that we said anything more until we reached Daphne's.
Then, as he helped me out, I said:
"How old is Uncle Egbert?"
"Eighty-six," he replied grimly, and went away without shaking hands.
Well, to go back to Poppy, for of course it is her story I am telling,
not mine. Mother came over soon after that and I went with her to
Mentone for two months. Then she went back to America from Genoa, and I
went back to London. Mother is the sweetest person in the world, and I
adore her, but she represents the old-fashioned woman, and of course I
stand for the advanced. For instance, she was much more interested in
Basil Ward than in the Cause, and she absolutely disapproved of Poppy's
stand about the income tax.
"I don't care to discuss the Cause," she said to me. "We have trouble
enough now with only the men voting. Why should we double our
anxieties?"
"That's silly, mother," I retorted. "Because one baby is a trouble and
naughty sometimes, should one have only one child?"
Basil met me at Charing Cross, and I knew there was something up by the
very way his stick hung to his arm.
"How's everything?" I asked, when he had called a cab and settled me in
it. "How nice and sooty it is, after the Riviera!"
"Filthy hole!" said Basil grumpily. "Haven't had a decent day since you
left."
(This was remarkable, because the papers had all said the weather in
London was wonderful for that time of year.)
"And Poppy?"
"Poppy's a fool," Basil broke out. "I'm glad you're back, Madge. Maybe
you can do something with her."
But he refused to tell me anything further. He asked if I would mind
going directly to Lancaster Gate, and sat back in a corner eyeing me
most of the way.
"You make me nervous," I said at last. "If you can't look at me
pleasantly, why look at all?"
"I can't help looking at you, and I'm blessed if I can look pleasant.
Madge, just how much is your heart and soul in the--er--Cause?"
Well, I was pretty tired of being questioned all the time. I said:
"There isn't any sacrifice I wouldn't make for it."
"If you were married----"
"I wouldn't marry a man who didn't think as I do."
He seemed to drop back further into his corner.
The whole thing puzzled me. For Basil said nothing, but looked dejected
and _beaten_, somehow. And yet he had always believed that women should
vote.
We found Poppy in her studio, but Viv's workroom below was empty and the
door into the passage stood open. His desk was orderly and his pens in a
row. It looked queer. Poppy was painting, standing before a huge canvas
and looking very smeary; she gave me a cheek to kiss, and she was thin!
Positively thin!
"You're looking very fit, Maggie," she said, without a smile. "We've
missed her, haven't we, Basil?"
Basil grunted something. Suddenly it occurred to me that he and Poppy
hardly glanced at one another, and that he was still holding his hat and
gloves. Their constraint, and Viv not around and everything--I was very
uncomfortable. Of course, if Basil cared for Poppy and I used to think
he did, and if Vivian had found it out--
"No, thanks, Poppy," said Basil, "I'll--I'll drop in again."
"Crumpets for tea!" said Poppy. They'd engaged the cook for her
crumpets.
"Thanks awfully," Basil muttered and having said something about seeing
me again very soon, he got out. I stared after him. Could this be Basil
the arrogant? Basil the abject? This brooding individual who did nothing
but stare at me as if he were trying to work something out!
Poppy came over to me, with her fists in the pockets of her painting
apron, and looked down at me.
"Frightened, like all the rest!" she said. "They say I'm responsible for
hundreds of broken engagements! They made the law themselves, and now,
when they see it in operation, they squeal."
It came over me then; Poppy's strained eyes, and her painting without a
cigarette, and Basil looking so queer.
"Then Viv----"
"Viv is in jail, my dear," she said. "Men made the law, of course, but I
wish you'd hear them! The Husband's Liability Act, child. A married
woman's husband is responsible for her debts. I refused to pay my
income tax as taxation without representation. Viv got stubborn, and
said _he_ wouldn't. Result, the entire male population screaming for
help, engaged men breaking with Suffragist fiancées, the population
prospects of the country poor, and--Viv in jail!"