‘Not exactly. Just look at the bunch of girls around us here. They’ve got bags of flour on their faces, red paint all over their lips, and they do fancy themselves. They’ll pick up anything in trousers.’
‘These are the drones, not the busy bees. All the best girls, like the best boys, are helping to win the war. They haven’t time to idle all day here. But the average man is a queer creature. He doesn’t want a “W.A.A.C.,” a “Wren,” or even a humbly dressed “V.A.D.” They haven’t got enough frills or fripperies. When he gets his leave he hobnobs with the girl slackers. After a day he is disillusioned; then he turns round on the sex. You men are so inconsistent. You want the lilies, but you always grasp the deadly nightshades. Do have another cake.’
‘Ah, well, you’re different,’ mumbled Beefy.
‘Thanks—but I’m really “feeding the brute.” You boys want mothering. It doesn’t do to let you have it all your own way. The world, somehow, has gone mad. This war is making all of us catty. It’s much nicer to be chummy, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, I think you are right on the chummy point.’
‘Good! You’re really not so pagan as I imagined. At first I thought you were a wild man of the woods.’
‘I thought girls preferred that kind.’
‘Perhaps; but they’re not reliable. Still, I believe the average girl likes a blend of the saint and the sinner.’
‘You women are certainly a mystery.’
‘To a man—yes. That’s our armour. You are all so fickle that we daren’t put all our goods in the window. You’re really better when on the end of a string and kept in suspense. It stops you chasing our rivals. Women have no use for polygamy. When we find a good thing we hang on to it.’