"Take the eight hour day, for instance. It doesn't apply to women at all—I mean house women. And nearly half the people are house women. It doesn't apply to farmers, either; and more than a quarter of the people in America are on farms. But you don't condemn the eight hour day—do you?—just because it doesn't fit everybody?"
"A four hour day!" repeated the first leader, still speaking in tones of awe.
"If that wouldn't make labour happy," said the second, "I don't know what would."
"Myself, I'd like to see it tried out somewhere," said the third. "It sounds possible—the way Miss Spencer puts it—but will it work?"
"That's the very thing to find out," said Mary, "and it won't take long."
She told them about the model bungalows.
"I intended to try it with twenty-five families first," she said, taking a list from her desk. "Here are the names of a hundred women working here, whose husbands are among the strikers. I thought that out of these hundred families, I might be able to find twenty-five who would be willing to try the experiment."
The three callers looked at each other and then they nodded approval.
"So while we're having lunch," she said, "I'll send these women out to find their husbands, and we'll talk to them altogether."
It was half past one when Mary entered the rest room with her three visitors and Archey. Nearly all the women had found their men, and they were waiting with evident curiosity.