GEOFFREY. And might have remained so, God knows! I suppose we’re made like that. So long as there was no danger passion slept. I cannot explain it. I only know that now, beside the thought of losing you, all else in the world seems meaningless. The Woman’s Movement! (_He makes a gesture of contempt_.) Men have wrecked kingdoms for a woman before now—and will again. I want you! (_He comes to her_.) Won’t you come back to me, that we may build up the home we used to dream of? Wasn’t the old love good? What has this new love to give you? Work that man can do better. The cause of the women—the children! Has woman loved woman better than man? Will the world be better for the children, man and woman contending? Come back to me. Help me. Help me to fight for all good women. Teach me how I may make the world better—for our children. ANNYS. (_The light is in her eyes_. _She stands a moment_. _Her hands are going out to him_.) ELIZABETH. (_She comes between them_.) Yes, go to him. He will be very good to you. Good men are kind to women, kind even to their dogs. You will be among the pampered few! You will be happy. And the others! What does it matter? (_They draw apart_. _She stands between them_, _the incarnation of the spirit of sex war_.) The women that have not kind owners—the dogs that have not kind masters—the dumb women, chained to their endless, unpaid drudgery! Let them be content. What are they but man’s chattel? To be honoured if it pleases him, or to be cast into the dust. Man’s pauper! Bound by his laws, subject to his whim; her every hope, her every aspiration, owed to his charity. She toils for him without ceasing: it should be her “pleasure.” She bears him children, when he chooses to desire them. They are his to do as he will by. Why seek to change it? Our man is kind. What have they to do with us: the women beaten, driven, overtasked—the women without hope or joy, the livers of grey lives that men may laugh and spend—the women degraded lower than the beasts to pander to the beast in man—the women outraged and abandoned, bearing to the grave the burden of man’s lust? Let them go their way. They are but our sisters of sorrow. And we who could help them—we to whom God has given the weapons: the brain, and the courage—we make answer: “I have married a husband, and I cannot come.” (_A silence_.) GEOFFREY. Well, you have heard. (_He makes a gesture_.) What is your answer?