Eugenia. More contented, because actively employed, than if they were wandering aimlessly in the country lanes of their fathers’ estates as thousands of intelligent uneducated women were doing a hundred years ago, kept ferociously at home by the will of the parent who held the purse-strings.
Henry. I rather wish I had lived in those good old times, when the lanes were full of pretty women.
Eugenia. But you, at any rate, Henry, had a large choice. I was much afraid at one time that you would never ask me.
Henry. Ah! But then I was a great heir, and all heirs have a wide choice. Not that I had any choice at all. I had the good luck to be accepted by the only woman I ever cared a pin about, and the only one I was sure was disinterested.
Eugenia. Dearest!
Henry [tentatively]. And yet our marriage falls short of an ideal one, my Eugenia.
Eugenia [apologetically]. Dear Henry, I know it does, but as soon as I cease to be Prime Minister I will do my duty to the country, and, what I think much more of, by you. What is a home without children? Besides, I must set an example. When you came in I was framing a bill to meet the alarming decline of the birth-rate. Unless something is done the nation will become extinct. The results of this tendency among women to marry later and later are disastrous.
Henry. And what is your bill, Eugenia?
Eugenia. That every healthy married woman or female celibate over twenty-five and under forty, members of the government excepted, must do her duty to the State by bringing into the world—