Eleanor had just observed George Drummond-Smith in the entranceway to the hall, puffing a cigar and looking about him with slightly narrowed eyes as though he was taking the measure of the place. He swung about and looked directly at her but Eleanor ducked her head. Her flesh prickled and she had an uneasy sense of the room shrinking around her. Short of running into Alasdair himself, Drummond-Smith was the last man she wished to encounter here.

When she ventured to look again he had gone.

But evidently it was not George Drummond-Smith Marian Dempsey had meant, for a young man in the ill-fitting suit and bowler hat of the clerical classes was hailing them from across the room and now began to make his way over. He was upon them before Eleanor could reply, a slight figure with a thin, hungry face and bright, rapidly blinking eyes, clasping a notepad and a small stub of pencil which he licked as though he was about to take their order in a rather cheap hotel.

‘Mrs Dunlevy,’ he called as he approached, waving a hand to get their attention. ‘Peters of the Mail. I did not expect to see the minister’s wife here at an anti-bill demonstration.’ And having located her, the blinking eyes latched onto her face and scrutinised every part of it as though he might find that which he most desired there.

Eleanor turned her head away, feeling a little sliver of ice prick her heart. ‘We do not subscribe to your newspaper, Mr Peters, and consequently have nothing to say to you,’ she declared, and proceeded to ignore him.

‘Really!’ said Miss Dempsey, when the young man had given up with a shrug and darted off. ‘One does not expect to be hailed in a crowd as though one were a hansom cab.’

But the meeting was beginning and a small group had disengaged itself and was mounting the platform at the front of the hall. A number of chairs and a lectern had been positioned there and below them the rows of chairs were clustered very close to the front of the platform as though the person who had arranged the room did not expect any of the women to speak loudly enough. The speakers were introduced: the chair, the secretary, the honoured guests, a Miss Hickman and a Miss Scott and a Miss Jessup and Miss Taylor and a Miss—