(SIGSBY _enters_, _damaged_. _His appearance is comic_. LADY MOGTON
_makes no effort to repress a grim smile_.)
SIGSBY. Funny, ain’t it?
LADY MOGTON. I am sorry.
SIGSBY. (_He snarls_.) “The Mother’s Hand shall Help Us!” One of your
posters, I think.
LADY MOGTON. You shouldn’t have insulted them—calling them old
washerwomen!
SIGSBY. Insult! Can’t one indulge in a harmless _jeu d’esprit_—(_he
pronounces it according to his own ideas_)—without having one’s clothes
torn off one’s back? (_Fiercely_.) What do you mean by it—disgracing
your sex?
LADY MOGTON. Are you addressing me?
SIGSBY. All of you. Upsetting the foundations upon which society has
been reared—the natural and lawful subjection of the woman to the man.
Why don’t you read St. Paul?
LADY MOGTON. St. Paul was addressing Christians. When men behave like
Christians there will be no need of Votes for Women. You read St. Paul
on men. (_To_ JANET.) I shall want you!
(_She goes out_, _followed by_ JANET.)
(SIGSBY _gives vent to a gesture_.)
JAWBONES. Getting saucy, ain’t they?
SIGSBY. Over-indulgence. That’s what the modern woman is suffering
from. Gets an idea on Monday that she’d like the whole world altered; if
it isn’t done by Saturday, raises hell! Where’s the guv’nor?
JAWBONES. Hasn’t been here.
SIGSBY. (_Hands_ JAWBONES _his damaged hat_.) See if they can do
anything to that. If not, get me a new one. (_He forks out a
sovereign_.) Sure to be some shops open in the High Street.
(LAMB _and_ ST. HERBERT _enter_.)
LAMB. Hallo! have they been mauling you?
SIGSBY. (_He snatches the damaged hat from_ JAWBONES, _to hand it back
the next moment_; _holds it out_.) Woman’s contribution to politics.
Get me a collar at the same time—sixteen and a half.
(JAWBONES _takes his cap and goes out_. _The men hang up their
overcoats_.)
SIGSBY. Where’s it all going to end? That’s what I want to know!
ST. HERBERT. Where most things end. In the millennium, according to its
advocates. In the ruin of the country, according to its opponents. In
mild surprise on the part of the next generation that ever there was any
fuss about it.
SIGSBY. In amazement, you mean, that their fathers were so blind as not
to see where it was leading. My boy, this is going to alter the whole
relationship between the sexes!
ST. HERBERT. Is it so perfect as it is?
(_A silence_.)
Might it not be established on a more workable, a more enduring basis if
woman were allowed a share in the shaping of it?
(_Some woman in the crowd starts the refrain_, “_We’ll hang old Asquith
on a sour apple tree_.” _It is taken up with quiet earnestness by
others_.)
SIGSBY. Shaping it! Nice sort of shape it will be by the time that lot
(_with a gesture_, _including the crowd_, LADY MOGTON & CO.) have done
knocking it about. Wouldn’t be any next generation to be surprised at
anything if some of them had their way.
ST. HERBERT. The housebreakers come first—not a class of work demanding
much intelligence; the builders come later. Have you seen Chilvers?
LAMB. I left him at the House. He couldn’t get away.
SIGSBY. There’s your object-lesson for you. We don’t need to go far. A
man’s whole career ruined by the wife he nourishes.
ST. HERBERT. How do you mean, “ruined?”
SIGSBY. So it is. If she wins the election and claims the seat. Do you
think the Cabinet will want him? Their latest addition compelled to
appeal to the House of Commons to fight for him against his own
womenfolk. (_Grunts_.) He’ll be the laughing-stock of the whole
country.
ST. HERBERT. Do you know for certain that they mean to claim the seat?
SIGSBY. “Wait and see” is their answer.
LAMB. Hasn’t Chilvers any idea?
SIGSBY. Can’t get him to talk. Don’t think he’s seen her since that
shindy over the Deputation.
LAMB. Humph!
SIGSBY. Even if she herself wished to draw back, the others would
overrule her.
LAMB. I’m not so sure of that. She’s got a way of shutting her mouth
that reminds me of my old woman.
SIGSBY. The arrangement, as he explained it to me, was that the whole
thing was to end with the polling. It was to have been a mere joke, a
mere _ballon d’essai_. The mistake he made was thinking he could depend
on her.
LAMB. Guess she made the same mistake. You can fight and shake hands
afterwards; it doesn’t go with kissing.
SIGSBY. Man and woman were not made to fight. It was never intended.
(_The woman’s_ “_Marseillaise_” _has been taken up by the crowd_. _The
chorus has been reached_.)