What line was it advisable to take?
She found herself strongly disapproving of what Mr.Clacton was saying.

She committed herself to the opinion that now was the time to strike hard.

Directly she had said this, she felt that she had turned upon Ralph's ghost; and she became more and more in earnest, and anxious to bring the others round to her point of view.
Once more, she knew exactly and indisputably what is right and what is wrong.

As if emerging from a mist, the old foes of the public good loomed ahead of her--capitalists, newspaper proprietors, anti-suffragists, and, in some ways most pernicious of all, the masses who take no interest one way or another--among whom, for the time being, she certainly discerned the features of Ralph Denham.

Indeed, when Miss Markham asked her to suggest the names of a few friends of hers, she expressed herself with unusual bitterness: "My friends think all this kind of thing useless." She felt that she was really saying that to Ralph himself.
"Oh, they're that sort, are they ?" said Miss Markham, with a little laugh; and with renewed vigor their legions charged the foe.
Mary's spirits had been low when she entered the committee-room; but now they were considerably improved.