Annys. (The light is in her eyes. She stands a moment. Her hands are going out to him.)
Elizabeth. (She comes between them.) Yes, go to him. He will be very good to you. Good men are kind to women, kind even to their dogs. You will be among the pampered few! You will be happy. And the others! What does it matter?
(They draw apart. She stands between them, the incarnation of the spirit of sex war.)
The women that have not kind owners—the dogs that have not kind masters—the dumb women, chained to their endless, unpaid drudgery! Let them be content. What are they but man’s chattel? To be honoured if it pleases him, or to be cast into the dust. Man’s pauper! Bound by his laws, subject to his whim; her every hope, her every aspiration, owed to his charity. She toils for him without ceasing: it should be her “pleasure.” She bears him children, when he chooses to desire them. They are his to do as he will by. Why seek to change it? Our man is kind. What have they to do with us: the women beaten, driven, overtasked—the women without hope or joy, the livers of grey lives that men may laugh and spend—the women degraded lower than the beasts to pander to the beast in man—the women outraged and abandoned, bearing to the grave the burden of man’s lust? Let them go their way. They are but our sisters of sorrow. And we who could help them—we to whom God has given the weapons: the brain, and the courage—we make answer: “I have married a husband, and I cannot come.”
(A silence.)
Geoffrey. Well, you have heard. (He makes a gesture.) What is your answer?
Annys. (She comes to him.) Don’t you love me enough to humour me a little—to put up with my vexing ways? I so want to help, to feel I am doing just a little, to make the world kinder. I know you can do it better, but I want so to be “in it.” (She laughs.) Let us forget all this. Wake up to-morrow morning with fresh hearts. You will be Member for East Poplar. And then you shall help me to win Manchester. (She puts her hands upon his breast: she would have him take her in his arms.) I am not strong enough to fight alone.
Geoffrey. I want you. Let Manchester find some one else.
Annys. (She draws away from him.) And if I cannot—will not?
Geoffrey. I bring in my Bill on Monday. We’ll be quite frank about it. That is my price—you. I want you!