Further Foolishness: Ch. 6 - The Two Sexes in Fives or Sixes

Ch. 6 - The Two Sexes in Fives or Sixes

A Dinner-party Study

"But, surely," exclaimed the Hostess, looking defiantly
and searchingly through the cut flowers of the centre-piece,
so that her eye could intimidate in turn all the five
men at the table, "one must admit that women are men's
equals in every way?"

The Lady-with-the-Bust tossed her head a little and
echoed, "Oh, surely!"

The Debutante lifted her big blue eyes a little towards
the ceiling, with the upward glance that stands for
innocence. She said nothing, waiting for a cue as to what
to appear to be.

Meantime the Chief Lady Guest, known to be in suffrage
work, was pinching up her lips and getting her phrases
ready, like a harpooner waiting to strike. She knew that
the Hostess meant this as an opening for her.

But the Soft Lady Whom Men Like toyed with a bit of bread
on the tablecloth (she had a beautiful hand) and smiled
gently. The other women would have called it a simper.
To the men it stood for profound intelligence.

The five men that sat amongst and between the ladies
received the challenge of the Hostess's speech and answered
it each in his own way.

From the Heavy Host at the head of the table there came
a kind of deep grunt, nothing more. He had heard this
same talk at each of his dinners that season.

There was a similar grunt from the Heavy Business Friend
of the Host, almost as broad and thick as the Host himself.
He knew too what was coming. He proposed to stand by his
friend, man for man. He could sympathise. The
Lady-with-the-Bust was his wife.

But the Half Man with the Moon Face, who was known to
work side by side with women on committees and who called
them "Comrades," echoed:

"Oh, surely!" with deep emphasis.

The Smooth Gentleman, there for business reasons, exclaimed
with great alacrity, "Women equal! Oh, rather!"

Last of all the Interesting Man with Long Hair, known to
write for the magazines--all of them--began at once:

"I remember once saying to Mrs. Pankhurst--" but was
overwhelmed in the general conversation before he could
say what it was he remembered saying to Mrs. Pankhurst.

In other words, the dinner-party, at about course number
seven, had reached the inevitable moment of the discussion
of the two sexes.

It had begun as dinner-parties do.

Everybody had talked gloomily to his neighbour, over the
oysters, on one drink of white wine; more or less brightly
to two people, over the fish, on two drinks; quite
brilliantly to three people on three drinks; and then
the conversation had become general and the European war
had been fought through three courses with champagne.
Everybody had taken an extremely broad point of view.
The Heavy Business Friend had declared himself absolutely
impartial and had at once got wet with rage over cotton.
The Chief Lady Guest had explained that she herself was
half English on her mother's side, and the Lady-with-
the-Bust had told how a lady friend of hers had a cousin
who had travelled in Hungary. She admitted that it was
some years ago. Things might have changed since. Then
the Interesting Man, having got the table where he wanted
it, had said: "I remember when I was last in Sofia--by
the way it is pronounced Say-ah-fee-ah--talking with
Radovitch--or Radee-ah-vitch, as it should be sounded--the
foreign secretary, on what the Sobranje--it is pronounced
Soophrangee--would be likely to do"--and by the time he
had done with the Sobranje no one dared speak of the war
any more.

But the Hostess had got out of it the opening she wanted,
and she said:

"At any rate, it is wonderful what women have done in
the war--"

"And are doing," echoed the Half Man with the Moon Face.

And then it was that the Hostess had said that surely
every one must admit women are equal to men and the topic
of the sexes was started. All the women had been waiting
for it, anyway. It is the only topic that women care
about. Even men can stand it provided that fifty per cent
or more of the women present are handsome enough to
justify it.

"I hardly see how, after all that has happened, any
rational person could deny for a moment," continued the
Hostess, looking straight at her husband and his Heavy
Business Friend, "that women are equal and even superior
to men. Surely our brains are just as good?" and she gave
an almost bitter laugh.

"Don't you think perhaps--?" began the Smooth Gentleman.

"No, I don't," said the Hostess. "You're going to say
that we are inferior in things like mathematics or in
logical reasoning. We are not. But, after all, the only
reason why we are is because of training. Think of the
thousands of years that men have been trained. Answer me
that?"

"Well, might it not be--?" began the Smooth Gentleman.

"I don't think so for a moment," said the Hostess. "I
think if we'd only been trained as men have for the last
two or three thousand years our brains would be just as
well trained for the things they were trained for as they
would have been now for the things we have been trained
for and in that case wouldn't have. Don't you agree with
me," she said, turning to the Chief Lady Guest, whom she
suddenly remembered, "that, after all, we think more
clearly?"

Here the Interesting Man, who had been silent longer than
an Interesting Man can, without apoplexy, began:

"I remember once saying in London to Sir Charles Doosey--"

But the Chief Lady Guest refused to be checked.

"We've been gathering some rather interesting statistics,"
she said, speaking very firmly, syllable by syllable,
"on that point at our Settlement. We have measured the
heads of five hundred factory girls, making a chart of
them, you know, and the feet of five hundred domestic
servants--"

"And don't you find--" began the Smooth Gentleman.

"No," said the Chief Lady Guest firmly, "we do not. But
I was going to say that when we take our measurements
and reduce them to a scale of a hundred--I think you
understand me--"

"Ah, but come, now," interrupted the Interesting man,
"there's nothing really more deceitful than anthropometric
measures. I remember once saying (in London) to Sir Robert
Bittell--_the_ Sir Robert Bittell, you know--"

Here everybody murmured, "Oh, yes," except the Heavy Host
and his Heavy Friend, who with all their sins were honest
men.

"I said, 'Sir Robert, I want your frank opinion, your
very frank opinion--'"

But here there was a slight interruption. The Soft Lady
accidentally dropped a bangle from her wrist on to the
floor. Now all through the dinner she had hardly said
anything, but she had listened for twenty minutes (from
the grapefruit to the fish) while the Interesting Man
had told her about his life in Honduras (it is pronounced
Hondooras), and for another twenty while the Smooth
Gentleman, who was a barrister, had discussed himself as
a pleader. And when each of the men had begun to speak
in the general conversation, she had looked deep into
their faces as if hanging on to their words. So when she
dropped her bangle two of the men leaped from their chairs
to get it, and the other three made a sort of struggle
as they sat. By the time it was recovered and replaced
upon her arm (a very beautiful arm), the Interesting Man
was side-tracked and the Chief Lady Guest, who had gone
on talking during the bangle hunt, was heard saying:

"Entirely so. That seems to me the greatest difficulty
before us. So few men are willing to deal with the question
with perfect sincerity."

She laid emphasis on the word and the Half Man with the
Moon Face took his cue from it and threw a pose of almost
painful sincerity.

"Why is it," continued the Chief Lady Guest, "that men
always insist on dealing with us just as if we were
playthings, just so many dressed-up dolls?"

Here the Debutante immediately did a doll.

"If a woman is attractive and beautiful," the lady went
on, "so much the better." (She had no intention of letting
go of the doll business entirely.) "But surely you men
ought to value us as something more than mere dolls?"

She might have pursued the topic, but at this moment the
Smooth Gentleman, who made a rule of standing in all
round, and had broken into a side conversation with the
Silent Host, was overheard to say something about women's
sense of humour.

The table was in a turmoil in a moment, three of the
ladies speaking at once. To deny a woman's sense of humour
is the last form of social insult.

"I entirely disagree with you," said the Chief Lady Guest,
speaking very severely. "I know it from my own case, from
my own sense of humour and from observation. Last week,
for example, we measured no less than seventy-five factory
girls--"

"Well, I'm sure," said the Lady-with-the-Bust, "I don't
know what men mean by our not having a sense of humour.
I'm sure I have. I know I went last week to a vaudeville,
and I just laughed all through. Of course I can't read
Mark Twain, or anything like that, but then I don't call
that funny, do you?" she concluded, turning to the Hostess.

But the Hostess, feeling somehow that the ground was
dangerous, had already risen, and in a moment more the
ladies had floated out of the room and upstairs to the
drawing-room, where they spread themselves about in easy
chairs in billows of pretty coloured silk.

"How charming it is," the Chief Lady Guest began, "to
find men coming so entirely to our point of view! Do you
know it was so delightful to-night: I hardly heard a word
of dissent or contradiction."

Thus they talked; except the Soft Lady, who had slipped
into a seat by herself with an album over her knees, and
with an empty chair on either side of her. There she
waited.

Meantime, down below, the men had shifted into chairs to
one end of the table and the Heavy Host was shoving cigars
at them, thick as ropes, and passing the port wine, with
his big fist round the neck of the decanter. But for his
success in life he could have had a place as a bar tender
anywhere.

None of them spoke till the cigars were well alight.

Then the Host said very deliberately, taking each word
at his leisure, with smoke in between:

"Of course--this--suffrage business--"

"Tommyrot!" exclaimed the Smooth Gentleman, with great
alacrity, his mask entirely laid aside.

"Damn foolishness," gurgled the Heavy Business Friend,
sipping his port.

"Of course you can't really discuss it with women,"
murmured the Host.

"Oh, no," assented all the others. Even the Half Man
sipped his wine and turned traitor, there being no one
to see.

"You see," said the Host, "if my wife likes to go to
meetings and be on committees, why, I don't stop her."

"Neither do I mine," said the Heavy Friend. "It amuses
her, so I let her do it." His wife, the Lady-with-the-Bust,
was safely out of hearing.

"I remember once," began the Interesting Man, "saying
to"--he paused a moment, for the others were looking at
him--"another man that if women did get the vote they'd
never use it, anyway. All they like is being talked about
for not getting it."

After which, having exhausted the Woman Question, the
five men turned to such bigger subjects as the fall in
sterling exchange and the President's seventeenth note
to Germany.

Then presently they went upstairs. And when they reached
the door of the drawing-room a keen observer, or, indeed,
any kind of observer, might have seen that all five of
them made an obvious advance towards the two empty seats
beside the Soft Lady.

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