GEOFFREY Oh, only that!

SIGSBY Something of the sort.

[He goes out. MRS. CHINN also by the other door.]

GEOFFREY [Rising.] Will you pour out?

ANNYS [She has been thinking. She comes back to the present.] We shan't be in your way?

GEOFFREY Oh, no. It will make it easier to get rid of them.

[ANNYS changes her chair. The others gather round. The service and drinking of tea proceeds in the usual course.]

[To ELIZABETH.] You'll take some tea?

ELIZABETH Thank you.

GEOFFREY You must be enjoying yourself just now.

ELIZABETH [Makes a moue.] They insist on my being agreeable.

ANNYS It's so good for her. Teaches her self-control.

LAMB I gather from Mrs. Spender, that in the perfect world there will be no men at all.

ELIZABETH Oh, yes, they will be there. But in their proper place.

ST. HERBERT That's why you didn't notice them.

[The DEPUTATION reaches the door. The sound of voices is heard.]

PHOEBE She's getting on very well. If she isn't careful, she'll end up by being a flirt.

[The DEPUTATION enters, guided by SIGSBY. Its number is five, two men and three women. Eventually they group themselves--some standing, some sitting--each side of GEOFFREY. The others gather round ANNYS, who keeps her seat at the opposite side of the table.]

SIGSBY [Talking as he enters.] Exactly what I've always maintained.

HOPPER It would make the husband quite an interesting person.

SIGSBY [Cheerfully.] That's the idea. Here we are, guv'nor.

This is Mr. Chilvers.

[GEOFFREY bows, the DEPUTATION also. SIGSBY introduces a remarkably boyish-looking man, dressed in knickerbockers.]

SIGSBY This is Mr. Peekin, who has kindly consented to act as spokesman. [To the DEPUTATION, generally.] Will you have some tea?

MISS BORLa.s.sE [A thick-set, masculine-featured lady, with short hair and heavy eyebrows. Her deep, decisive tone settles the question.] Thank you. We have so little time.

MR. PEEKIN We propose, Mr. Chilvers, to come to the point at once.

[He is all smiles, caressing gestures.]

GEOFFREY Excellent.

PEEKIN If I left a baby at your door, what would you do with it?

GEOFFREY [For a moment he is taken aback, recovers himself.] Are you thinking of doing so?

PEEKIN It's not impossible.

GEOFFREY Well, it sounds perhaps inhospitable, but do you know I really think I should ask you to take it away again.

PEEKIN Yes, but by the time you find it there, I shall have disappeared--skedaddled.

HOPPER Good. [He rubs his hands. Smiles at the others.]

GEOFFREY In that case I warn you that I shall hand it over to the police.

PEEKIN [He turns to the others.] I don't myself see what else Mr.

Chilvers could be expected to do.

MISS BORLa.s.sE He'd be a fool not to.

GEOFFREY Thank you. So far we seem to be in agreement. And now may I ask to what all this is leading?

PEEKIN [He changes from the debonnair to the dramatic.] How many men, Mr. Chilvers, leave their babies every year at the door of poverty-stricken women? What are they expected to do with them?

[A moment. The DEPUTATION murmur approval.]

GEOFFREY I see. But is there no difference between the two doors?

I am not an accomplice.

PEEKIN An accomplice! Is the ignorant servant-girl--first lured into the public-house, cajoled, tricked, deceived by false promises--the half-starved shop-girl in the hands of the practised libertine--is she an accomplice?

MRS. PEEKIN [A dowdily-dressed, untidy woman, but the face is sweet and tender.] Ah, Mr. Chilvers, if you could only hear the stories that I have heard from dying lips.

GEOFFREY Very pitiful, my dear lady. And, alas, only too old.

But there are others. It would not be fair to blame always the man.

ANNYS [Unnoticed, drawn by the subject, she has risen and come down.] Perhaps not. But the punishment always falls on the woman.

Is THAT quite fair?

GEOFFREY [He is irritated at ANNYS'S incursion into the discussion.] My dear Annys, that is Nature's law, not man's. All man can do is to mitigate it.

PEEKIN That is all we ask. The suffering, the shame, must always be the woman's. Surely that is sufficient.

GEOFFREY What do you propose?

MISS BORLa.s.sE [In her deep, fierce tones.] That all children born out of wedlock should be a charge upon the rates.