Marguerite returned from the kitchen, sullen and complaining from her encounter with Mrs Flynn, and her mother, skipping briskly from the Jellicoe divorce said, ‘We read of you, too, in the newspaper, Eleanor, attending the Women’s Suffrage League meeting against the bill. I rather expected to see you at the town hall with the Federal League, and instead there you were throwing in your lot with the opposition! I confess I was quite thrilled that you had done such a thing, and that Mr Dunlevy had allowed it.’

And so this was the purpose of the visit. But Cecily Pyke was not an unkind person; she suffered occasionally for the poor and the less fortunate. If she had called on her friend it was as much to see that all was well as it was to uncover secrets. But of all the preoccupations that smouldered within the heart of her silent and silk-clad host at this moment and that might, at some distant time, be revealed, it was humiliation and shame that burned the most fiercely and that would never, could never, be brought out into the daylight. And so Eleanor said, ‘My attendance was at the behest of Miss Dempsey to support her as she supported her brother, and so Alasdair had no cause to say anything about it.’

Mrs Pyke was silent for a moment, and if she did not believe this or was disappointed by it, or if she was merely considering a third scone, was not clear.

‘Well,’ she said finally, ‘I do think it very high-minded of Mr Dunlevy to agree to it. I am not certain Fraser would have, and he is a very high-minded man.’

And beside her Marguerite sighed and looked bored by the idea of her father being very high-minded.

People were gathered outside Parliament House—for no very good reason that Eleanor could see, though it was certain to be connected in some way to the Federation. The crowd was small and, despite the rain, appeared to be settled in for the day.

But what can be achieved? thought Eleanor, whose patience with it all had run its course.

She had defied her husband, and she had defied herself. She had refused to remain at home another day and had come out. The visit from Cecily Pyke had shattered but also to some degree mended her. There was unfinished business and so she had come to Macquarie Street.

And almost immediately she saw her husband’s secretary, James Greensmith. He emerged from the crowd, buttoning up a coat, papers under his arm and with a sense of purpose in his stride, but when he saw her—which he did, though she had done nothing to attract his attention—he stopped dead so that a man walked into him.