Press Cuttings Part 7

MITCHENER (amazed). My dear lady!

LADY CORINTHIA. I am not your dear lady. You are not the first man who has concluded that because I am devoted to music and can reach F flat with the greatest facility--Patti never got above E flat--I am marked out as the prey of every libertine. You think I am like the thousands of weak women whom you have ruined--

MITCHENER. I solemnly protest--

LADY CORINTHIA. Oh, I know what you officers are. To you a woman's honor is nothing, and the idle pleasure of the moment is everything.

MITCHENER. This is perfectly ridiculous. I never ruined anyone in my life.

LADY CORINTHIA. Never! Are you in earnest?

MITCHENER. Certainly I am in earnest. Most indignantly in earnest.

LADY CORINTHIA (throwing down the pistol contemptuously). Then you have no temperament; you are not an artist. You have no soul for music.

MITCHENER. Ive subscribed to the regimental band all my life. I bought two sarrusophones for it out of my own pocket. When I sang Tosti's Goodbye for Ever at Knightsbridge in 1880, the whole regiment wept. You are too young to remember that.

LADY CORINTHIA. Your advances are useless. I--

MITCHENER. Confound it, madam, can you not receive an innocent compliment without suspecting me of dishonorable intentions?

LADY CORINTHIA. Love--real love--makes all intentions honorable. But YOU could never understand that.

MITCHENER. Ill not submit to the vulgar penny-novelette notion that an officer is less honorable than a civilian in his relations with women.

While I live Ill raise my voice--

LADY CORINTHIA. Tus.h.!.+

MITCHENER. What do you mean by tush?

LADY CORINTHIA. You cant raise your voice above its natural compa.s.s.

What sort of voice have you?

MITCHENER. A tenor. What sort had you?

LADY CORINTHIA. Had? I have it still. I tell you I am the highest living soprano. (Scornfully.) What was your highest note, pray?

MITCHENER. B flat--once--in 1879. I was drunk at the time.

LADY CORINTHIA (gazing at him almost tenderly). Though you may not believe me, I find you are more interesting when you talk about music than when you are endeavoring to betray a woman who has trusted you by remaining alone with you in your apartment.

MITCHENER (springing up and fuming away to the fireplace). These repeated insults to a man of blameless life are as disgraceful to you as they are undeserved by me, Lady Corinthia. Such suspicions invite the conduct they impute. (She raises the pistol.) You need not be alarmed: I am only going to leave the room.

LADY CORINTHIA. Fish.

MITCHENER. Fis.h.!.+ This is worse than tush. Why fish?

LADY CORINTHIA. Yes, fish: coldblooded fish.

MITCHENER. Dash it all, madam, do you WANT me to make advances to you?

LADY CORINTHIA. I have not the slightest intention of yielding to them; but to make them would be a tribute to romance. What is life without romance?

MITCHENER (making a movement toward her). I tell you--

LADY CORINTHIA. Stop. No nearer. No vulgar sensuousness. If you must adore, adore at a distance.

MITCHENER. This is worse than Mrs. Banger. I shall ask that estimable woman to come back.

LADY CORINTHIA. Poor Mrs. Banger! Do not for a moment suppose, General Mitchener, that Mrs. Banger represents my views on the suffrage question. Mrs. Banger is a man in petticoats. I am every inch a woman; but I find it convenient to work with her.

MITCHENER. Do you find the combination comfortable?

LADY CORINTHIA. I do not wear combinations, General: (with dignity) they are unwomanly.

MITCHENER (throwing himself despairingly into the chair next the hearthrug). I shall go mad. I never for a moment dreamt of alluding to anything of the sort.

LADY CORINTHIA. There is no need to blush and become self-conscious at the mention of underclothing. You are extremely vulgar, General.

MITCHENER. Lady Corinthia: you have my pistol. Will you have the goodness to blow my brains out. I should prefer it to any further effort to follow the gyrations of the weatherc.o.c.k you no doubt call your mind.

If you refuse, then I warn you that youll not get another word out of me--not if we sit here until doomsday.

LADY CORINTHIA. I dont want you to talk. I want you to listen. You do not yet understand my views on the question of the Suffrage. (She rises to make a speech.) I must preface my remarks by reminding you that the Suffraget movement is essentially a dowdy movement. The suffragets are not all dowdies; but they are mainly supported by dowdies. Now I am not a dowdy. Oh, no compliments--

MITCHENER. I did not utter a sound.

LADY CORINTHIA (smiling). It is easy to read your thoughts. I am one of those women who are accustomed to rule the world through men. Man is ruled by beauty, by charm. The men who are not have no influence. The Salic Law, which forbade women to occupy a throne, is founded on the fact that when a woman is on the throne the country is ruled by men, and therefore ruled badly; whereas when a man is on the throne, the country is ruled by women, and therefore ruled well. The suffragets would degrade women from being rulers to being voters, mere politicians, the drudges of the caucus and the polling booth. We should lose our influence completely under such a state of affairs. The New Zealand women have the vote. What is the result? No poet ever makes a New Zealand woman his heroine. One might as well be romantic about New Zealand mutton. Look at the suffragets themselves. The only ones who are popular are the pretty ones, who flirt with mobs as ordinary women flirt with officers.

MITCHENER. Then I understand you to hold that the country should be governed by the women after all.

LADY CORINTHIA. Not by all the women. By certain women. I had almost said by one woman. By the women who have charm--who have artistic talent--who wield a legitimate, a refining influence over the men.

(She sits down gracefully, smiling, and arranging her draperies with conscious elegance.)

MITCHENER. In short, madam, you think that if you give the vote to the man, you give the power to the women who can get round the man.

LADY CORINTHIA. That is not a very delicate way of putting it; but I suppose that is how you would express what I mean.

MITCHENER. Perhaps youve never had any experience of garrison life.

If you had, you'd have noticed that the sort of woman who is clever at getting round men is sometimes rather a bad lot.

LADY CORINTHIA. What do you mean by a bad lot?

MITCHENER. I mean a woman who would play the very devil if the other women didnt keep her in pretty strict order. I dont approve of democracy, because its rot; and Im against giving the vote to women because Im not accustomed to it and therefore am able to see with an unprejudiced eye what infernal nonsense it is. But I tell you plainly, Lady Corinthia, that there is one game that I dislike more than either Democracy or Votes For Women: and that is the game of Antony and Cleopatra. If I must be ruled by women, let me have decent women and not--well, not the other sort.

LADY CORINTHIA. You have a coa.r.s.e mind, General Mitchener.

MITCHENER. So has Mrs. Banger. And by George! I prefer Mrs. Banger to you!