LADY CORINTHIA. And if you had to do without Wagner's music or do without your breakfast, you would do without Wagner. Pray does that make eggs and bacon more precious than music, or the butcher and baker better than the poet and philosopher? The scullery may be more necessary to our bare existence than the cathedral. Even humbler apartments might make the same claim. But which is the more essential to the higher life? MITCHENER. Your arguments are so devilishly ingenious that I feel convinced you got them out of some confounded book. Mine--such as they are--are my own. I imagine its something like this. There is an old saying that if you take care of the pence, the pounds will take care of themselves. Well, perhaps if we take care of the dowdies and the butchers and the bakers, the beauties and the bigwigs will take care of themselves. (Rising and facing her determinedly.) Anyhow, I dont want to have things arranged for me by Wagner. Im not Wagner. How does he know where the shoe pinches me? How do you know where the shoe pinches your washerwoman?--you and your high F in alt. How are you to know when you havent made her comfortable unless she has a vote? Do you want her to come and break your windows? LADY CORINTHIA. Am I to understand that General Mitchener is a democrat and a suffraget? MITCHENER. Yes: you have converted me--you and Mrs. Banger. LADY CORINTHIA. Farewell, creature. (Balsquith enters hurriedly.) Mr. Balsquith: I am going to wait on General Sandstone. He at least is an officer and a gentleman. (She sails out.) BALSQUITH. Mitchener: the game is up. MITCHENER. What do you mean? BALSQUITH. The strain is too much for the Cabinet. The old Liberal and Unionist Free Traders declare that if they are defeated on their resolution to invite tenders from private contractors for carrying on the Army and Navy, they will go solid for votes for women as the only means of restoring the liberties of the country which we have destroyed by compulsory military service. MITCHENER. Infernal impudence? BALSQUITH. The Labor party is taking the same line. They say the men got the Factory Acts by hiding behind the women's petticoats, and that they will get votes for the army in the same way. MITCHENER. Balsquith: we must not yield to clamor. I have just told this lady that I am at last convinced-- BALSQUITH (joyfully). That the suffragets must be supported. MITCHENER. No: that the anti-suffragets must be put down at all hazards. BALSQUITH. Same thing. MITCHENER. No. For you now tell me that the Labor Party demands votes for women. That makes it impossible to give them, because it would be yielding to clamor. The one condition on which we can consent to grant anything in this country is that nobody shall presume to want it. BALSQUITH (earnestly). Mitchener: its no use. You cant have the conveniences of Democracy without its occasional inconveniences. MITCHENER. What are its conveniences, I should like to know?