“With you! Good God, no! I am angry with society, with that particular cad, and that female, the Champion woman. I think I shall go and half kill that man.” She stretched out a hand. “Don’t! I should not have told you. Besides, it is all over.” He contradicted her. “No, these things leave a mark—an impression.” “Need it be a bad one?” “Perhaps not. It depends.” “On ourselves? Don’t you think that I am broader, wiser, more the queen of my own soul? I am beginning to laugh again.” He stared at his clasped hands, and then raised his eyes suddenly to her face. “Eve!” His uttering of the name thrilled her. “If you are wiser, why are you gadding about with these fools?” She gave a little nervous laugh. “Oh, because they were kind to me, because they are out to better things for women.” “Have they a monopoly of all the kindness?” “I—I don’t know.” “Yes, you do. I am an ordinary sort of man in many ways, and we, the average men, have a growing understanding of what are called the wrongs of women. Give me one.” She flushed slightly, and hesitated. “They—they want us to bribe them when we want work—success.” “I know. It is the blackguard’s game. But women can change that. The best men want to change it. But I ask you, are there no female cads who demand of men what some men demand of women?” “You mean——” “It is not all on one side. How are many male careers made? Isn’t there favouritism there too? I know men who would never be where they are, but for the fact that they were sexually favoured by certain women. I could quote you some pretty extraordinary cases, high up, near the summit. Besides, a sex war is the maddest sort of war that could be imagined.” She felt driven to bay. “But can we help fighting sometimes?” “There is a difference between quarrelling and fighting.” “Oh, come!” “There is, when you come to think about it. I want neither. Does quarrelling ever help us?” “It may.” “When it drags us at once to a lower, baser, more prejudiced level? And do you think that these fanatics who burn houses are helping their cause?” “Some of them have suffered very bitterly.” “Yes, and that is the very plea that damns them. They are egotists who must advertise their sufferings. Supposing we all behaved like lunatics when we had a grievance? Isn’t there something finer and more convincing than that? The real women are winning the equality that they want, but these fools are only raising obstinate prejudices. Am I, a fairly reasonable man, to be bullied, threatened and nagged at? Instinctively the male fist comes up, the fist that balances the woman’s sharper tongue. For God’s sake, don’t let us get to back-alley arguments. Sex is marriage, marriage at its best, reasonable and human. Let’s talk things over by the fireside, try not to be little, try to understand each other, try to play the game together. What is the use of kicking the chessboard over? Perhaps other people, our children, have to pick up the pieces.”