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MITCHENER. Bismarck a woman?

MRS. BANGER. All the really strong men of history have been disguised women.

MITCHENER (remonstrating). My dear lady!

MRS. BANGER. How can you tell? You never knew that the hero of the charge at Kassassin was a woman: yet she was: it was I, Rosa Carmina Banger. Would Napoleon have been so brutal to women, think you, had he been a man?

MITCHENER. Oh, come, come! Really! Surely female rulers have often shown all the feminine weaknesses. Queen Elizabeth, for instance. Her vanity, her levity.

MRS. BANGER. Nobody who has studied the history of Queen Elizabeth can doubt for a moment that she was a disguised man.

LADY CORINTHIA (admiring Mrs. Banger). Isnt she splendid?

MRS. BANGER (rising with a large gesture). This very afternoon I shall cast off this hampering skirt for ever; mount my charger; and with my good sabre lead the Anti-Suffragets to victory. (She strides to the other side of the room, snorting.)

MITCHENER. But I cant allow anything of the sort, madam. I shall stand no such ridiculous nonsense. Im perfectly determined to put my foot down.

LADY CORINTHIA. Dont be hysterical, General.

MITCHENER. Hysterical!

MRS. BANGER. Do you think we are to be stopped by these childish exhibitions of temper. They are useless; and your tears and entreaties–a man’s last resource–will avail you just as little. I sweep them away, just as I sweep your plans of campaign “made in Germany–“

MITCHENER (flying into a transport of rage). How dare you repeat that infamous slander? (He rings the bell violently.) If this is the alternative to votes for women, I shall advocate giving every woman in the country six votes.

The Orderly comes in.

Remove that woman. See that she leaves the building at once.

The Orderly forlornly contemplates the iron front presented by Mrs. Banger.

THE ORDERLY (propitiatorily). Would you av the feelin art to step out, madam.

MRS. BANGER. You are a soldier. Obey your orders. Put me out. If I got such an order, I should not hesitate.

THE ORDERLY (To Mitchener). Would you mind lendin me a and, Guvner?

LADY CORINTHIA (raising her revolver). I shall be obliged to shoot you if you stir, General.

MRS. BANGER (To the Orderly). When you are ordered to put a person out you should do it like this. (She hurls him from the room. He is heard falling headlong downstairs and crashing through a glass door.) I shall now wait on General Sandstone. If he shows any sign of weakness, he shall share that poor wretch’s fate. (She goes out.)

LADY CORINTHIA. Isnt she magnificent?

MITCHENER. Thank heaven shes gone. And now, my dear lady, is it necessary to keep that loaded pistol to my nose all through our conversation?

LADY CORINTHIA. Its not loaded. Its heavy enough, goodness knows, without putting bullets in it.

MITCHENER (triumphantly snatching his revolver from the drawer). Then I am master of the situation. This IS loaded. Ha, ha!

LADY CORINTHIA. But since we are not really going to shoot one another, what difference can it possibly make?

MITCHENER (putting his pistol down on the table). True. Quite true. I recognize there the practical good sense that has prevented you from falling into the snares of the Suffragets.

LADY CORINTHIA. The Suffragets, General, are the dupes of dowdies. A really attractive and clever woman–

MITCHENER (gallantly). Yourself, for instance.

LADY CORINTHIA (snatching up his revolver). Another step and you are a dead man.

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.