“That’s rot! Excuse me, miss. You’ve got to give reason a chance, and a pretty long chance. Do you think we working men won what we’ve got in three months? You have to go on shoving and shoving, and in the end, if you’ve got common sense on your side, you push the public through. You can’t expect things turned all topsy-turvy in ten minutes, because a few women get up on carts and scream. They ought to know better.” “They say it is the only thing that’s left.” His blue eyes twinkled. “Not a bit of it, miss. The men were coming round. We’re better chaps, better husbands and fathers than we were a hundred years ago. You know, miss, a man ain’t averse to a decent amount of pleasant persuasion. It don’t do to nag him, or he may tell you to go to blazes. Well, I wish you good afternoon.” They had reached the gates, and he touched the brim of his hard hat, smiling down at her with shrewd kindness. “I’m very grateful to you.” He coloured up, and his smile broadened, and Eve walked away down Oxford Street, doing some pregnant thinking. The man had reminded her of Canterton. What was Canterton’s attitude towards this movement, and what was her attitude to Canterton now that she had touched more of the realities of life? When she came to analyse her feelings she found that Canterton did not appear to exist for her in the present. Fernhill and its atmosphere had become prehistoric. It had removed into the Golden Age, above and beyond criticism, and she did not include it in this world of struggling prejudices and aspirations. And yet, when she let herself think of Canterton and Lynette, she felt less sure of the sex antagonism that she was encouraging with scourge and prayer. Canterton seemed to stand in the pathway of her advance, looking down at her with eyes that smiled, eyes that were without mockery. Moreover, something that he had once said to her kept opposing itself to her arbitrary and enthusiastic pessimism. She could remember him stating his views, and she could remember disagreeing with him. He had said, “People are very much happier than you imagine. Sentimentalists have always made too much of the woe of the world. There is a sort of thing I call organic happiness, the active physical happiness of the animal that is reasonably healthy. Of course we grumble, but don’t make the mistake of taking grumbling for the cries of discontented misery. I believe that most of the miserable people are over-sensed, under-bodied neurotics. They lack animal vitality. I think I can speak from experience, since I have mixed a good deal with working people. In the mass they are happy, much happier, perhaps, than we are. Perhaps because they don’t eat too much, and so think dyspeptically.”