None of them are, my boy. A woman, who is a woman, doesn’t want to be anything else. These people are a sex of their own, Sylvester. They have invented a new gender. And to think my nephew’s one of them!

[Strides up and down, seizes another antimacassar and flings it into another corner.

SYLVESTER.

Oh, he’s young. Don’t despair!

COLONEL.

I don’t despair! Do you suppose this folly can continue? Do you imagine that these puffed-up women will not soon burst of their own vanity? Then, the reaction! then will come our turn! Mark my words, Sylvester, there’ll be a boom in men!

[Rubbing his hands.

Enter Gerald, door in flat.

GERALD.