nearly three o'clock
There it was ! a rectangle of red screaming across the vivid green of the park not a hundred yards from the Marble Arch , the denunciatory banner stretched above the side of an uncovered van . A little crowd of perhaps a hundred collected on one side of the cart -- the loafers on the outermost fringe , lying on the grass . Never a sign of a Suffragette , and nearly three o'clock ! Impossible for any passer-by to carry out the programme of pausing to ask idly , ` What are those women screeching about ? ' Seeming to search in vain for some excuse to linger , Miss Levering 's wandering eye fell upon a young mother wheeling a perambulator . She had glanced with mild curiosity at the flaunting ensign , and then turned from it to lean forward and straighten her baby 's cap .