when we take the first step your breasts are under our foot as it
descends: your bodies are under our wheels as we start. No woman shall
ever enslave me in that way.

ANN. But, Jack, you cannot get through life without considering other
people a little.

TANNER. Ay; but what other people? It is this consideration of other
people or rather this cowardly fear of them which we call consideration
that makes us the sentimental slaves we are. To consider you, as you
call it, is to substitute your will for my own. How if it be a baser
will than mine? Are women taught better than men or worse? Are mobs of
voters taught better than statesmen or worse? Worse, of course, in both
cases. And then what sort of world are you going to get, with its public
men considering its voting mobs, and its private men considering their
wives? What does Church and State mean nowadays? The Woman and the
Ratepayer.

ANN. [placidly] I am so glad you understand politics, Jack: it will
be most useful to you if you go into parliament [he collapses like a
pricked bladder]. But I am sorry you thought my influence a bad one.

TANNER. I don't say it was a bad one. But bad or good, I didn't choose
to be cut to your measure. And I won't be cut to it.

ANN. Nobody wants you to, Jack. I assure you--really on my word--I
don't mind your queer opinions one little bit. You know we have all been
brought up to have advanced opinions. Why do you persist in thinking me
so narrow minded?

TANNER. That's the danger of it. I know you don't mind, because you've
found out that it doesn't matter. The boa constrictor doesn't mind the
opinions of a stag one little bit when once she has got her coils round
it.

ANN. [rising in sudden enlightenment] O-o-o-o-oh! NOW I understand why
you warned Tavy that I am a boa constrictor. Granny told me. [She laughs
and throws her boa around her neck]. Doesn't it feel nice and soft,
Jack?

TANNER. [in the toils] You scandalous woman, will you throw away even
your hypocrisy?

ANN. I am never hypocritical with you, Jack. Are you angry? [She
withdraws the boa and throws it on a chair]. Perhaps I shouldn't have
done that.

TANNER. [contemptuously] Pooh, prudery! Why should you not, if it amuses
you?

ANN. [Shyly] Well, because--because I suppose what you really meant by
the boa constrictor was THIS [she puts her arms round his neck].

TANNER. [Staring at her] Magnificent audacity! [She laughs and pats his
cheeks]. Now just to th