'The Egyptians, too, restless under "benefits." And now everywhere, as if by some great concerted movement—the Women!'
'Yes, yes; there's plenty of regrettable restlessness up and down the world, a sort of wave of revolt against the constituted authorities. If it goes too far—nothing for us but a military despotism!'
She shook her head with a look of such serene conviction that he persisted, 'I'd be sorry if we came to it—but if this spirit grows, this rebellion against all forms of control——'
'No, no, against other people's control. Suppose it ends in people learning self-control.'
'That's the last thing the masses can do. There are few, even of the élite, who have ever done it, and they belong to the Moral Aristocracy—the smallest and most rigid in the world. This thing that you're just opening your eyes to, is the rage against restraint that goes with decadence. But the phlegmatic Englishman won't lead in that dégringolade.'
'You mean we won't be among the first of the great nations to give women the Suffrage?'
'England?' The slow head-shake and the smile airily relegated the Woman's Movement to the limbo of the infinitely distant.
'Just because the men won't have it?' and for the second time she said, 'I wonder. For myself, I rather think the women are going to win.'
'Not in my time. Not even in yours.'