"But we must have plates?" Henry said.
"Why?" she retorted.
"Well!" he rejoined, smiling at her as one smiles at a foolish child.
"Oh, I know," she went on, "you think I'm talking wildly. I've heard all about your Improved Toryism. Roger's told me about it. You all think that you are the anointed ones, and that the bulk of people are born to do what they're told. You won't have whips for your slaves ... you'll have statutes. You won't sell them ... you'll socialise them. Cogs in wheels, you'll make them! Oh, it isn't worth while living like that. You don't even let a man do a whole job ... you only let him do a part of one, and you're trying to turn him into an automaton more and more every day. He's to press a button ... and that's all. Presently, he'll be a button!..."
"My dear Rachel," Roger said, "you don't imagine, do you, that the whole world's going to turn back to ... piggery as you call it? We've spent centuries in creating this civilisation...."
"Is it worth while?" she demanded.
"Yes...."
"Prove it," she insisted.
"Well, of course, that's a job, isn't it? I can't prove it in a few minutes...."
"You can't prove it, Roger," she interrupted. "If all this civilisation were worth while, you wouldn't need to prove it: it would be obvious. We'd only have to look out of the door to see the proof."