'Do you know,' Vida asked, 'who those men are who have just stopped?'
'No.'
'I believe Ernestine does.'
'Oh, perhaps they're bold bad members of Parliament.'
'Some of us,' she was saying, 'have read a little history. We have read how every struggle towards freedom has met with opposition and abuse. We expected to have our share of those things. But we find that no movement before ours has ever had so much laughter to face.' Through the renewed merriment she went on: 'Yes, you wonder I admit that. We don't deny anything that's true. And I'll tell you another thing! We aren't made any prouder of our men-folk by the discovery that behind their old theory of woman as "half angel, half idiot," is a sneaking feeling that "woman is a huge joke."'
'Or just a little one for a penny like you!'
'Men have imagined—they imagine still, that we have never noticed how ridiculous they can be. You see'—she leaned over and spoke confidentially—'we've never dared break it to them.'
'Haw! Haw!'
'We know they couldn't bear it.'
'Oh-h!'