LADY CORINTHIA (bounding to her feet.) You prefer Mrs. Banger to me!!!
MITCHENER. I do. You said yourself she was splendid.
LADY CORINTHIA. You are no true man. You are one of those uns.e.xed creatures who have no joy in life, no sense of beauty, no high notes.
MITCHENER. No doubt I am, Madam. As a matter of fact, I am not clever at discussing public questions, because, as an English gentleman, I was not brought up to use my brains. But occasionally, after a number of remarks which are perhaps sometimes rather idiotic, I get certain convictions.
Thanks to you, I have now got a conviction that this woman question is not a question of lovely and accomplished females, but of dowdies. The average Englishwoman is a dowdy and never has half a chance of becoming anything else. She hasnt any charm; and she has no high notes except when shes giving her husband a piece of her mind, or calling down the street for one of the children.
LADY CORINTHIA. How disgusting!
MITCHENER. Somebody must do the dowdy work! If we had to choose between pitching all the dowdies into the Thames and pitching all the lovely and accomplished women, the lovely ones would have to go.
LADY CORINTHIA. And if you had to do without Wagner"s music or do without your breakfast, you would do without Wagner. Pray does that make eggs and bacon more precious than music, or the butcher and baker better than the poet and philosopher? The scullery may be more necessary to our bare existence than the cathedral. Even humbler apartments might make the same claim. But which is the more essential to the higher life?
MITCHENER. Your arguments are so devilishly ingenious that I feel convinced you got them out of some confounded book. Mine--such as they are--are my own. I imagine its something like this. There is an old saying that if you take care of the pence, the pounds will take care of themselves. Well, perhaps if we take care of the dowdies and the butchers and the bakers, the beauties and the bigwigs will take care of themselves. (Rising and facing her determinedly.) Anyhow, I dont want to have things arranged for me by Wagner. Im not Wagner. How does he know where the shoe pinches me? How do you know where the shoe pinches your washerwoman?--you and your high F in alt. How are you to know when you havent made her comfortable unless she has a vote? Do you want her to come and break your windows?
LADY CORINTHIA. Am I to understand that General Mitchener is a democrat and a suffraget?
MITCHENER. Yes: you have converted me--you and Mrs. Banger.
LADY CORINTHIA. Farewell, creature. (Balsquith enters hurriedly.) Mr.
Balsquith: I am going to wait on General Sandstone. He at least is an officer and a gentleman. (She sails out.)
BALSQUITH. Mitchener: the game is up.
MITCHENER. What do you mean?
BALSQUITH. The strain is too much for the Cabinet. The old Liberal and Unionist Free Traders declare that if they are defeated on their resolution to invite tenders from private contractors for carrying on the Army and Navy, they will go solid for votes for women as the only means of restoring the liberties of the country which we have destroyed by compulsory military service.
MITCHENER. Infernal impudence?
BALSQUITH. The Labor party is taking the same line. They say the men got the Factory Acts by hiding behind the women"s petticoats, and that they will get votes for the army in the same way.
MITCHENER. Balsquith: we must not yield to clamor. I have just told this lady that I am at last convinced--
BALSQUITH (joyfully). That the suffragets must be supported.
MITCHENER. No: that the anti-suffragets must be put down at all hazards.
BALSQUITH. Same thing.
MITCHENER. No. For you now tell me that the Labor Party demands votes for women. That makes it impossible to give them, because it would be yielding to clamor. The one condition on which we can consent to grant anything in this country is that n.o.body shall presume to want it.
BALSQUITH (earnestly). Mitchener: its no use. You cant have the conveniences of Democracy without its occasional inconveniences.
MITCHENER. What are its conveniences, I should like to know?
BALSQUITH. When you tell people that they are the real rulers and they can do what they like, nine times out of ten, they say, "All right, tell us what to do." But it happens sometimes that they get an idea of their own; and then of course youre landed.
MITCHENER. Sh--
BALSQUITH (desperately shouting him down). No: its no use telling me to shoot them down: Im not going to do it. After all, I dont suppose votes for women will make much difference. It hasnt in the other countries in which it has been tried.
MITCHENER. I never supposed it would make much difference. What I cant stand is giving in to that Pankhurst lot. Hang it all, Balsquith, it seems only yesterday that we put them in quod for a month. I said at the time that it ought to have been ten years. If my advice had been taken this wouldnt have happened. Its a consolation to me that events are proving how thoroughly right I was.
The Orderly rushes in.
THE ORDERLY. Look ere, sir: Mrs. Banger locked the door of General Sandstone"s room on the inside; and shes sitting on his ead until he signs a proclamation for women to serve in the army.
MITCHENER. Put your shoulder to the door and burst it open.
THE ORDERLY. Its only in story books that doors burst open as easy as that. Besides, Im only too thankful to have a locked door between me and Mrs. B.; and so is all the rest of us.
MITCHENER. Cowards. Balsquith: to the rescue! (He dashes out.)
BALSQUITH (ambling calmly to the hearth). This is the business of the Sergeant at Arms rather than of the leader of the House. Theres no use in my tackling Mrs. Banger: she would only sit on my head too.
THE ORDERLY. You take my tip, Mr. Balsquith. Give the women the vote and give the army civil rights; and av done with it.
Mitchener returns.
MITCHENER. Balsquith: prepare to hear the worst.
BALSQUITH. Sandstone is no more?
MITCHENER. On the contrary, he is particularly lively. He has softened Mrs. Banger by a proposal of marriage in which he appears to be perfectly in earnest. He says he has met his ideal at last, a really soldierly woman. She will sit on his head for the rest of his life; and the British Army is now to all intents and purposes commanded by Mrs.
Banger. When I remonstrated with Sandstone she positively shouted "Right-about-face. March" at me in the most offensive tone. If she hadnt been a woman I should have punched her head. I precious nearly punched Sandstone"s. The horrors of martial law administered by Mrs. Banger are too terrible to be faced. I demand civil rights for the army.
THE ORDERLY (chuckling). Wot oh, General! Wot oh!
MITCHENER. Hold your tongue. (He goes to the door and calls.) Mrs.
Farrell! (Returning, and again addressing the Orderly.) Civil rights don"t mean the right to be uncivil. (Pleased with his own wit.) Almost a pun. Ha ha!
MRS. FARRELL. Whats the matther now? (She comes to the table.)
MITCHENER (to the Orderly). I have private business with Mrs. Farrell.
Outside, you infernal blackguard.
THE ORDERLY (arguing, as usual). Well, I didnt ask to--(Mitchener seizes him by the nape; rushes him out; and slams the door).
MITCHENER. Excuse the abruptness of this communication, Mrs. Farrell; but I know only one woman in the country whose practical ability and force of character can maintain her husband in compet.i.tion with the husband of Mrs. Banger. I have the honor to propose for your hand.
MRS. FARRELL. Dye mean you want to marry me?
MITCHENER. I do.
MRS. FARRELL. No thank you. Id have to work for you just the same; only I shouldnt get any wages for it.
BALSQUITH. That will be remedied when women get the vote. Ive had to promise that.