But Eleanor found it was too many names all at once and, now that she studied them more closely, they all looked astonishingly similar. All spinsters, every one of them, past their prime and into their middle years or beyond, plainly dressed in brown and grey as though suffrage could come in no other colours but these. As though suffrage must be dull and dreary. And self-important and quite, quite irrelevant, and Eleanor sighed a little to herself for it was a little absurd and a little pathetic. And beside her Miss Dempsey, though she was no suffragist, leaned forward expectantly, breathlessly, but then Miss Dempsey was a spinster too. She too wore grey.

The chairman, a Miss Hickman, stood up and Ned Dempsey stood up too, and called loudly for quiet though the hall had largely fallen silent. Miss Hickman ignored the nod he gave her to proceed and began her address. It was a short address of welcome and high hopes and ended with an entreaty: ‘Electors of this colony, in your own interests and in the interest of those to come after you, vote No on June twenty!’

This was met by applause, both sustained and enthusiastic, and one or two of the younger and more ardent women in the hall rose to their feet and then sat down again, a little self-consciously.

And Eleanor thought it was all very well her urging them all to vote No, but had it escaped everyone’s notice that not a woman among them could vote? One might as well sit and lecture a roomful of blacks on the finer points of the constitution. It was absurd and, yes, a little pathetic. She smiled to herself because it was always pleasing to feel a little superior.

Miss Hickman resumed her seat and Ned Dempsey leaned over and patted her arm and uttered something encouraging.

A second speaker was introduced, a Miss Scott, who took a moment to compose herself; who looked about her, awed, perhaps, by the enormity of the hall, of the audience, of the task before her.

‘Ladies,’ she began in a clear, calm voice, ‘unlike the women of South Australia we have no vote!’

‘Shame! Shame!’

‘Yet we are taxpayers. And we are law-abiding citizens—more law-abiding than most men are!’

There was laughter here, and applause. Ned Dempsey frowned, but in the saddened way of a disappointed parent.

‘Let these men divest themselves of the ridiculous old-fashioned idea that a great nation is made out of huge national debts, standing armies, expensive buildings, much territory, artificial sentiment, fat billets for some people, while others starve.’

‘Hear, hear!’

‘A nation can only be great inasmuch as the whole of its people enjoy that greatness, feel that greatness, and can leave it as an inheritance to their children.’

Miss Scott paused and looked at her audience. She leaned forward. She abandoned the lectern entirely and walked to the edge of the platform.