'To you and me. Not to the brawlers in Hyde Park. The life of civilized beings is a very complex thing. It isn't filled by good intentions nor even by the cardinal virtues. The function of the older societies is to hand on the best things the world has won, so that those who come after, instead of having to go back to barbarism, may start from where the best of their day left off. We do for manners and the arts in general what the Moors did for learning when the wild hordes came down. There were capital chaps among the barbarians,' he smiled, 'I haven't a doubt! But it was the men who held fast to civilization's clue, they were the people who mattered. _We_ matter. We hold the clue.' He was recovering his spirits. 'Your friends want to open the gates still wider to the Huns. You want even the Moors overwhelmed.' 'Many women are as jealous to guard the old gains as the men are. Wait!' She leaned forward. 'I begin to see! They are more keen about it than the mass of men. The women! They are civilization's only ally against your brother, the Goth.' He laughed. 'When you are as absurd as that, my dear, I don't mind. No, not a little bit. And I really believe I'm too fond of you to quarrel on any ground.' 'You don't care enough about anything to quarrel about it,' she said, smiling, too. 'But it's just as well'--she rose and began to draw on her glove--'just as well that each of us should know where to find the other. So tell me, what if it should be a question of going forward in the suffrage direction or going back?' 'You mean----' '----on from latchkeys and University degrees to Parliament, or back.' 'Oh, back,' he said hastily. 'Back. Yes, back to the harem.' When the words were out, Lord Borrodaile had laughed a little uneasily--like one who has surprised even himself by some too-illuminating avowal. 'See here,' he put out a hand. 'I'm not going to let you go for a minute or two. I've brought something to show you. This foolish discussion put it out of my head.' But the revealing word he had flung out--it seemed to have struck wide some window that had been shuttered close before. The woman stood there in the glare. She did not refuse to be drawn back to her place on the sofa, but she looked round first to see if the others had heard and how they took it. A glimpse of Mrs. Freddy's gown showed her out of earshot on the balcony.