"I want a vote," said Ann Veronica.

"Really!" said Mr. Manning, in an earnest voice, and waved his hand to
the alley of mauve and purple. "I wish you didn't."

"Why not?" She turned on him.

"It jars. It jars with all my ideas. Women to me are something so
serene, so fine, so feminine, and politics are so dusty, so sordid,
so wearisome and quarrelsome. It seems to me a woman's duty to be
beautiful, to BE beautiful and to behave beautifully, and politics
are by their very nature ugly. You see, I--I am a woman worshipper.
I worshipped women long before I found any woman I might ever hope
to worship. Long ago. And--the idea of committees, of hustings, of
agenda-papers!"

"I don't see why the responsibility of beauty should all be shifted on
to the women," said Ann Veronica, suddenly remembering a part of Miss
Miniver's discourse.

"It rests with them by the nature of things. Why should you who are
queens come down from your thrones? If you can afford it, WE can't. We
can't afford to turn our women, our Madonnas, our Saint Catherines, our
Mona Lisas, our goddesses and angels and fairy princesses, into a sort
of man. Womanhood is sacred to me. My politics in that matter wouldn't
be to give women votes. I'm a Socialist, Miss Stanley."

"WHAT?" said Ann Veronica, startled.