MISS L. Use her hold over Geoffrey Stonor to make him help us! LADY JOHN. Help you? MISS L. The man who served one woman--God knows how many more--very ill, shall serve hundreds of thousands well. Geoffrey Stonor shall make it harder for his son, harder still for his grandson, to treat any woman as he treated me. LADY JOHN. How will he do that? MISS L. By putting an end to the helplessness of women. LADY JOHN (_ironically_). You must think he has a great deal of power---- MISS L. Power? Yes, men have too much over penniless and frightened women. LADY JOHN (_impatiently_). What nonsense! You talk as though the women hadn't their share of human nature. _We_ aren't made of ice any more than the men. MISS L. No, but all the same we have more self-control. LADY JOHN. Than men? MISS L. You know we have. LADY JOHN (_shrewdly_). I know we mustn't admit it. MISS L. For fear they'd call us fishes! LADY JOHN (_evasively_). They talk of our lack of self-control--but it's the last thing they _want_ women to have. MISS L. Oh, we know what they want us to have. So we make shift to have it. If we don't, we go without hope--sometimes we go without bread. LADY JOHN (_shocked_). Vida--do you mean to say that you---- MISS L. I mean to say that men's vanity won't let them see it, but the thing's largely a question of economics. LADY JOHN (_shocked_). You _never_ loved him, then! MISS L. Oh, yes, I loved him--_once_. It was my helplessness turned the best thing life can bring, into a curse for both of us. LADY JOHN. I don't understand you---- MISS L. Oh, being "understood!"--that's too much to expect. When people come to know I've joined the Union---- LADY JOHN. But you won't---- MISS L.--who is there who will resist the temptation to say, "Poor Vida Levering! What a pity she hasn't got a husband and a baby to keep her quiet"? The few who know about me, they'll be equally sure that it's not the larger view of life I've gained--my own poor little story is responsible for my new departure. (_Leans forward and looks into_ LADY JOHN'S _face._) My best friend, she will be surest of all, that it's a private sense of loss, or, lower yet, a grudge----! But I tell you the only difference between me and thousands of women with husbands and babies is that I'm free to say what I think. _They aren't._ LADY JOHN (_rising and looking at her watch_). I must get back--my poor ill-used guests. MISS L. (_rising_). I won't ring. I think you'll find Mr. Stonor downstairs waiting for you. LADY JOHN (_embarrassed_). Oh--a--he will have left word about the car in any case. (MISS LEVERING _has opened the door_ (C.). ALLEN TRENT _is in the act of saying goodbye to_ JEAN _in the hall._) MISS L. Well, Mr. Trent, I didn't expect to see you this evening. TRENT (_comes and stands in the doorway_). Why not? Have I ever failed? MISS L. Lady John, this is one of our allies. He is good enough to squire me through the rabble from time to time.