First among these is the habit of allowing ourselves to be bound not only by the truths of the Christian religion but by the excesses and extravagances which the Christian movement acquired in its earlier days as a violent reaction against what it still calls paganism. By far the most dangerous of these, because it is a blasphemy against life, and, to put it in Christian terms, an accusation of indecency against God, is the notion that sex, with all its operations, is in itself absolutely an obscene thing, and that an immaculate conception is a miracle. So unwholesome an absurdity could only have gained ground under two conditions: one, a reaction against a society in which sensual luxury had been carried to revolting extremes, and, two, a belief that the world was coming to an end, and that therefore sex was no longer a necessity. Christianity, because it began under these conditions, made sexlessness and Communism the two main practical articles of its propaganda; and it has never quite lost its original bias in these directions. In spite of the putting off of the Second Coming from the lifetime of the apostles to the millennium, and of the great disappointment of the year 1000 A.D., in which multitudes of Christians seriously prepared for the end of the world, the prophet who announces that the end is at hand is still popular. Many of the people who ridicule his demonstrations that the fantastic monsters of the book of Revelation are among us in the persons of our own political contemporaries, and who proceed sanely in all their affairs on the assumption that the world is going to last, really do believe that there will be a Judgment Day, and that it MIGHT even be in their own time. A thunderstorm, an eclipse, or any very unusual weather will make them apprehensive and uncomfortable.
This explains why, for a long time, the Christian Church refused to have anything to do with marriage. The result was, not the abolition of sex, but its excommunication. And, of course, the consequences of persuading people that matrimony was an unholy state were so grossly carnal, that the Church had to execute a complete right-about-face, and try to make people understand that it was a holy state: so holy indeed that it could not be validly inaugurated without the blessing of the Church. And by this teaching it did something to atone for its earlier blasphemy. But the mischief of chopping and changing your doctrine to meet this or that practical emergency instead of keeping it adjusted to the whole scheme of life, is that you end by having half-a-dozen contradictory doctrines to suit half-a-dozen different emergencies. The Church solemnized and sanctified marriage without ever giving up its original Pauline doctrine on the subject. And it soon fell into another confusion. At the point at which it took up marriage and endeavored to make it holy, marriage was, as it still is, largely a survival of the custom of selling women to men. Now in all trades a marked difference is made in price between a new article and a second-hand one. The moment we meet with this difference in value between human beings, we may know that we are in the slave-market, where the conception of our relations to the persons sold is neither religious nor natural nor human nor superhuman, but simply commercial. The Church, when it finally gave its blessing to marriage, did not, in its innocence, fathom these commercial traditions. Consequently it tried to sanctify them too, with grotesque results. The slave-dealer having always asked more money for virginity, the Church, instead of detecting the money-changer and driving him out of the temple, took him for a sentimental and chivalrous lover, and, helped by its only half-discarded doctrine of celibacy, gave virginity a heavenly value to ennoble its commercial pretensions. In short, Mammon, always mighty, put the Church in his pocket, where he keeps it to this day, in spite of the occasional saints and martyrs who contrive from time to time to get their heads and souls free to testify against him.
But Mammon overreached himself when he tried to impose his doctrine of inalienable property on the Church under the guise of indissoluble marriage. For the Church tried to shelter this inhuman doctrine and flat contradiction of the gospel by claiming, and rightly claiming, that marriage is a sacrament. So it is; but that is exactly what makes divorce a duty when the marriage has lost the inward and spiritual grace of which the marriage ceremony is the outward and visible sign. In vain do bishops stoop to pick up the discarded arguments of the atheists of fifty years ago by pleading that the words of Jesus were in an obscure Aramaic dialect, and were probably misunderstood, as Jesus, they think, could not have said anything a bishop would disapprove of. Unless they are prepared to add that the statement that those who take the sacrament with their lips but not with their hearts eat and drink their own damnation is also a mistranslation from the Aramaic, they are most solemnly bound to shield marriage from profanation, not merely by permitting divorce, but by making it compulsory in certain cases as the Chinese do.
When the great protest of the XVI century came, and the Church was reformed in several countries, the Reformation was so largely a rebellion against sacerdotalism that marriage was very nearly excommunicated again: our modern civil marriage, round which so many fierce controversies and political conflicts have raged, would have been thoroughly approved of by Calvin, and hailed with relief by Luther. But the instinctive doctrine that there is something holy and mystic in sex, a doctrine which many of us now easily dissociate from any priestly ceremony, but which in those days seemed to all who felt it to need a ritual affirmation, could not be thrown on the scrap-heap with the sale of Indulgences and the like; and so the Reformation left marriage where it was: a curious mixture of commercial sex slavery, early Christian sex abhorrence, and later Christian sex sanctification.
How strong was the feeling that a husband or a wife is an article of property, greatly depreciated in value at second-hand, and not to be used or touched by any person but the proprietor, may be learnt from Shakespear. His most infatuated and passionate lovers are Antony and Othello; yet both of them betray the commercial and proprietary instinct the moment they lose their tempers. "I found you," says Antony, reproaching Cleopatra, "as a morsel cold upon dead Caesar's trencher." Othello's worst agony is the thought of "keeping a corner in the thing he loves for others' uses." But this is not what a man feels about the thing he loves, but about the thing he owns. I never understood the full significance of Othello's outburst until I one day heard a lady, in the course of a private discussion as to the feasibility of "group marriage," say with cold disgust that she would as soon think of lending her toothbrush to another woman as her husband. The sense of outraged manhood with which I felt myself and all other husbands thus reduced to the rank of a toilet appliance gave me a very unpleasant taste of what Desdemona might have felt had she overheard Othello's outburst. I was so dumfounded that I had not the presence of mind to ask the lady whether she insisted on having a doctor, a nurse, a dentist, and even a priest and solicitor all to herself as well. But I had too often heard men speak of women as if they were mere personal conveniences to feel surprised that exactly the same view is held, only more fastidiously, by women.
All these views must be got rid of before we can have any healthy public opinion (on which depends our having a healthy population) on the subject of sex, and consequently of marriage. Whilst the subject is considered shameful and sinful we shall have no systematic instruction in sexual hygiene, because such lectures as are given in Germany, France, and even prudish America (where the great Miltonic tradition in this matter still lives) will be considered a corruption of that youthful innocence which now subsists on nasty stories and whispered traditions handed down from generation to generation of school-children: stories and traditions which conceal nothing of sex but its dignity, its honor, its sacredness, its rank as the first necessity of society and the deepest concern of the nation. We shall continue to maintain the White Slave Trade and protect its exploiters by, on the one hand, tolerating the white slave as the necessary breakwater of marriage; and, on the other, trampling on her and degrading her until she has nothing to hope from our Courts; and so, with policemen at every corner, and law triumphant all over Europe, she will still be smuggled and cattle-driven from one end of the civilized world to the other, cheated, beaten, bullied, and hunted into the streets to disgusting overwork, without daring to utter the cry for help that brings, not rescue, but exposure and infamy, yet revenging herself terribly in the end by scattering blindness and sterility, pain and disfigurement, insanity and death among us with the certainty that we are much too pious and genteel to allow such things to be mentioned with a view to saving either her or ourselves from them. And all the time we shall keep enthusiastically investing her trade with every allurement that the art of the novelist, the playwright, the dancer, the milliner, the painter, the limelight man, and the sentimental poet can devize, after which we shall continue to be very much shocked and surprised when the cry of the youth, of the young wife, of the mother, of the infected nurse, and of all the other victims, direct and indirect, arises with its invariable refrain: "Why did nobody warn me?"
I must not reply flippantly, Make them all Wards in Chancery; yet that would be enough to put any sensible person on the track of the reply. One would think, to hear the way in which people sometimes ask the question, that not only does marriage prevent the difficulty from ever arising, but that nothing except divorce can ever raise it. It is true that if you divorce the parents, the children have to be disposed of. But if you hang the parents, or imprison the parents, or take the children out of the custody of the parents because they hold Shelley's opinions, or if the parents die, the same difficulty arises. And as these things have happened again and again, and as we have had plenty of experience of divorce decrees and separation orders, the attempt to use children as an obstacle to divorce is hardly worth arguing with. We shall deal with the children just as we should deal with them if their homes were broken up by any other cause. There is a sense in which children are a real obstacle to divorce: they give parents a common interest which keeps together many a couple who, if childless, would separate. The marriage law is superfluous in such cases. This is shewn by the fact that the proportion of childless divorces is much larger than the proportion of divorces from all causes. But it must not be forgotten that the interest of the children forms one of the most powerful arguments for divorce. An unhappy household is a bad nursery. There is something to be said for the polygynous or polyandrous household as a school for children: children really do suffer from having too few parents: this is why uncles and aunts and tutors and governesses are often so good for children. But it is just the polygamous household which our marriage law allows to be broken up, and which, as we have seen, is not possible as a typical institution in a democratic country where the numbers of the sexes are about equal. Therefore polygyny and polyandry as a means of educating children fall to the ground, and with them, I think, must go the opinion which has been expressed by Gladstone and others, that an extension of divorce, whilst admitting many new grounds for it, might exclude the ground of adultery. There are, however, clearly many things that make some of our domestic interiors little private hells for children (especially when the children are quite content in them) which would justify any intelligent State in breaking up the home and giving the custody of the children either to the parent whose conscience had revolted against the corruption of the children, or to neither.
Which brings me to the point that divorce should no longer be confined to cases in which one of the parties petitions for it. If, for instance, you have a thoroughly rascally couple making a living by infamous means and bringing up their children to their trade, the king's proctor, instead of pursuing his present purely mischievous function of preventing couples from being divorced by proving that they both desire it, might very well intervene and divorce these children from their parents. At present, if the Queen herself were to rescue some unfortunate child from degradation and misery and place her in a respectable home, and some unmentionable pair of blackguards claimed the child and proved that they were its father and mother, the child would be given to them in the name of the sanctity of the home and the holiness of parentage, after perpetrating which crime the law would calmly send an education officer to take the child out of the parents' hands several hours a day in the still more sacred name of compulsory education. (Of course what would really happen would be that the couple would blackmail the Queen for their consent to the salvation of the child, unless, indeed, a hint from a police inspector convinced them that bad characters cannot always rely on pedantically constitutional treatment when they come into conflict with persons in high station).
The truth is, not only must the bond between man and wife be made subject to a reasonable consideration of the welfare of the parties concerned and of the community, but the whole family bond as well. The theory that the wife is the property of the husband or the husband of the wife is not a whit less abhorrent and mischievous than the theory that the child is the property of the parent. Parental bondage will go the way of conjugal bondage: indeed the order of reform should rather be put the other way about; for the helplessness of children has already compelled the State to intervene between parent and child more than between husband and wife. If you pay less than 40 pounds a year rent, you will sometimes feel tempted to say to the vaccination officer, the school attendance officer, and the sanitary inspector: "Is this child mine or yours?" The answer is that as the child is a vital part of the nation, the nation cannot afford to leave it at the irresponsible disposal of any individual or couple of individuals as a mere small parcel of private property. The only solid ground that the parent can take is that as the State, in spite of its imposing name, can, when all is said, do nothing with the child except place it in the charge of some human being or another, the parent is no worse a custodian than a stranger. And though this proposition may seem highly questionable at first sight to those who imagine that only parents spoil children, yet those who realize that children are as often spoilt by severity and coldness as by indulgence, and that the notion that natural parents are any worse than adopted parents is probably as complete an illusion as the notion that they are any better, see no serious likelihood that State action will detach children from their parents more than it does at present: nay, it is even likely that the present system of taking the children out of the parents' hands and having the parental duty performed by officials, will, as poverty and ignorance become the exception instead of the rule, give way to the system of simply requiring certain results, beginning with the baby's weight and ending perhaps with some sort of practical arts degree, but leaving parents and children to achieve the results as they best may. Such freedom is, of course, impossible in our present poverty-stricken circumstances. As long as the masses of our people are too poor to be good parents or good anything else except beasts of burden, it is no use requiring much more from them but hewing of wood and drawing of water: whatever is to be done must be done FOR them mostly, alas! by people whose superiority is merely technical. Until we abolish poverty it is impossible to push rational measures of any kind very far: the wolf at the door will compel us to live in a state of siege and to do everything by a bureaucratic martial law that would be quite unnecessary and indeed intolerable in a prosperous community. But however we settle the question, we must make the parent justify his custody of the child exactly as we should make a stranger justify it. If a family is not achieving the purposes of a family it should be dissolved just as a marriage should when it, too, is not achieving the purposes of marriage. The notion that there is or ever can be anything magical and inviolable in the legal relations of domesticity, and the curious confusion of ideas which makes some of our bishops imagine that in the phrase "Whom God hath joined," the word God means the district registrar or the Reverend John Smith or William Jones, must be got rid of. Means of breaking up undesirable families are as necessary to the preservation of the family as means of dissolving undesirable marriages are to the preservation of marriage. If our domestic laws are kept so inhuman that they at last provoke a furious general insurrection against them as they already provoke many private ones, we shall in a very literal sense empty the baby out with the bath by abolishing an institution which needs nothing more than a little obvious and easy rationalizing to make it not only harmless but comfortable, honorable, and useful.
But please do not imagine that the evils of indissoluble marriage can be cured by divorce laws administered on our present plan. The very cheapest undefended divorce, even when conducted by a solicitor for its own sake and that of humanity, costs at least 30 pounds out-of-pocket expenses. To a client on business terms it costs about three times as much. Until divorce is as cheap as marriage, marriage will remain indissoluble for all except the handful of people to whom 100 pounds is a procurable sum. For the enormous majority of us there is no difference in this respect between a hundred and a quadrillion. Divorce is the one thing you may not sue for in forma pauperis.
Let me, then, recommend as follows:
1. Make divorce as easy, as cheap, and as private as marriage.
2. Grant divorce at the request of either party, whether the other consents or not; and admit no other ground than the request, which should be made without stating any reasons.
3. Confine the power of dissolving marriage for misconduct to the State acting on the petition of the king's proctor or other suitable functionary, who may, however, be moved by either party to intervene in ordinary request cases, not to prevent the divorce taking place, but to enforce alimony if it be refused and the case is one which needs it.
4. Make it impossible for marriage to be used as a punishment as it is at present. Send the husband and wife to penal servitude if you disapprove of their conduct and want to punish them; but do not send them back to perpetual wedlock.
5. If, on the other hand, you think a couple perfectly innocent and well conducted, do not condemn them also to perpetual wedlock against their wills, thereby making the treatment of what you consider innocence on both sides the same as the treatment of what you consider guilt on both sides.
6. Place the work of a wife and mother on the same footing as other work: that is, on the footing of labor worthy of its hire; and provide for unemployment in it exactly as for unemployment in shipbuilding or an other recognized bread-winning trade.
7. And take and deal with all the consequences of these acts of justice instead of letting yourself be frightened out of reason and good sense by fear of consequences. We must finally adapt our institutions to human nature. In the long run our present plan of trying to force human nature into a mould of existing abuses, superstitions, and corrupt interests, produces the explosive forces that wreck civilization.
8. Never forget that if you leave your law to judges and your religion to bishops, you will presently find yourself without either law or religion. If you doubt this, ask any decent judge or bishop. Do NOT ask somebody who does not know what a judge is, or what a bishop is, or what the law is, or what religion is. In other words, do not ask your newspaper. Journalists are too poorly paid in this country to know anything that is fit for publication.
To sum up, we have to depend on the solution of the problem of unemployment, probably on the principles laid down in the Minority Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Law, to make the sexual relations between men and women decent and honorable by making women economically independent of men, and (in the younger son section of the upper classes) men economically independent of women. We also have to bring ourselves into line with the rest of Protestant civilization by providing means for dissolving all unhappy, improper, and inconvenient marriages. And, as it is our cautious custom to lag behind the rest of the world to see how their experiments in reform turn out before venturing ourselves, and then take advantage of their experience to get ahead of them, we should recognize that the ancient system of specifying grounds for divorce, such as adultery, cruelty, drunkenness, felony, insanity, vagrancy, neglect to provide for wife and children, desertion, public defamation, violent temper, religious heterodoxy, contagious disease, outrages, indignities, personal abuse, "mental anguish," conduct rendering life burdensome and so forth (all these are examples from some code actually in force at present), is a mistake, because the only effect of compelling people to plead and prove misconduct is that cases are manufactured and clean linen purposely smirched and washed in public, to the great distress and disgrace of innocent children and relatives, whilst the grounds have at the same time to be made so general that any sort of human conduct may be brought within them by a little special pleading and a little mental reservation on the part of witnesses examined on oath. When it conies to "conduct rendering life burdensome," it is clear that no marriage is any longer indissoluble; and the sensible thing to do then is to grant divorce whenever it is desired, without asking why.
N.B.—There is a point of some technical interest to be noted in this play. The customary division into acts and scenes has been disused, and a return made to unity of time and place, as observed in the ancient Greek drama. In the foregoing tragedy, The Doctor's Dilemma, there are five acts; the place is altered five times; and the time is spread over an undetermined period of more than a year. No doubt the strain on the attention of the audience and on the ingenuity of the playwright is much less; but I find in practice that the Greek form is inevitable when drama reaches a certain point in poetic and intellectual evolution. Its adoption was not, on my part, a deliberate display of virtuosity in form, but simply the spontaneous falling of a play of ideas into the form most suitable to it, which turned out to be the classical form. Getting Married, in several acts and scenes, with the time spread over a long period, would be impossible.
On a fine morning in the spring of 1908 the Norman kitchen in the Palace of the Bishop of Chelsea looks very spacious and clean and handsome and healthy.
The Bishop is lucky enough to have a XII century palace. The palace itself has been lucky enough to escape being carved up into XV century Gothic, or shaved into XVIII century ashlar, or "restored" by a XIX century builder and a Victorian architect with a deep sense of the umbrella-like gentlemanliness of XIV century vaulting. The present occupant, A. Chelsea, unofficially Alfred Bridgenorth, appreciates Norman work. He has, by adroit complaints of the discomfort of the place, induced the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to give him some money to spend on it; and with this he has got rid of the wall papers, the paint, the partitions, the exquisitely planed and moulded casings with which the Victorian cabinetmakers enclosed and hid the huge black beams of hewn oak, and of all other expedients of his predecessors to make themselves feel at home and respectable in a Norman fortress. It is a house built to last for ever. The walls and beams are big enough to carry the tower of Babel, as if the builders, anticipating our modern ideas and instinctively defying them, had resolved to show how much material they could lavish on a house built for the glory of God, instead of keeping a competitive eye on the advantage of sending in the lowest tender, and scientifically calculating how little material would be enough to prevent the whole affair from tumbling down by its own weight.
The kitchen is the Bishop's favorite room. This is not at all because he is a man of humble mind; but because the kitchen is one of the finest rooms in the house. The Bishop has neither the income nor the appetite to have his cooking done there. The windows, high up in the wall, look north and south. The north window is the largest; and if we look into the kitchen through it we see facing us the south wall with small Norman windows and an open door near the corner to the left. Through this door we have a glimpse of the garden, and of a garden chair in the sunshine. In the right-hand corner is an entrance to a vaulted circular chamber with a winding stair leading up through a tower to the upper floors of the palace. In the wall to our right is the immense fireplace, with its huge spit like a baby crane, and a collection of old iron and brass instruments which pass as the original furniture of the fire, though as a matter of fact they have been picked up from time to time by the Bishop at secondhand shops. In the near end of the left hand wall a small Norman door gives access to the Bishop's study, formerly a scullery. Further along, a great oak chest stands against the wall. Across the middle of the kitchen is a big timber table surrounded by eleven stout rush-bottomed chairs: four on the far side, three on the near side, and two at each end. There is a big chair with railed back and sides on the hearth. On the floor is a drugget of thick fibre matting. The only other piece of furniture is a clock with a wooden dial about as large as the bottom of a washtub, the weights, chains, and pendulum being of corresponding magnitude; but the Bishop has long since abandoned the attempt to keep it going. It hangs above the oak chest.
The kitchen is occupied at present by the Bishop's lady, Mrs Bridgenorth, who is talking to Mr William Collins, the greengrocer. He is in evening dress, though it is early forenoon. Mrs Bridgenorth is a quiet happy-looking woman of fifty or thereabouts, placid, gentle, and humorous, with delicate features and fine grey hair with many white threads. She is dressed as for some festivity; but she is taking things easily as she sits in the big chair by the hearth, reading The Times.
Collins is an elderly man with a rather youthful waist. His muttonchop whiskers have a coquettish touch of Dundreary at their lower ends. He is an affable man, with those perfect manners which can be acquired only in keeping a shop for the sale of necessaries of life to ladies whose social position is so unquestionable that they are not anxious about it. He is a reassuring man, with a vigilant grey eye, and the power of saying anything he likes to you without offence, because his tone always implies that he does it with your kind permission. Withal by no means servile: rather gallant and compassionate, but never without a conscientious recognition, on public grounds, of social distinctions. He is at the oak chest counting a pile of napkins.
Mrs Bridgenorth reads placidly: Collins counts: a blackbird sings in the garden. Mrs Bridgenorth puts The Times down in her lap and considers Collins for a moment.
MRS BRIDGENORTH. Do you never feel nervous on these occasions,Collins?COLLINS. Lord bless you, no, maam. It would be a joke, aftermarrying five of your daughters, if I was to get nervous overmarrying the last of them.MRS BRIDGENORTH. I have always said you were a wonderful man,Collins.COLLINS [almost blushing] Oh, maam!MRS BRIDGENORTH. Yes. I never could arrange anything—a weddingor even dinner—without some hitch or other.COLLINS. Why should you give yourself the trouble, maam? Send forthe greengrocer, maam: thats the secret of easy housekeeping.Bless you, it's his business. It pays him and you, let alone thepleasure in a house like this [Mrs Bridgenorth bows inacknowledgment of the compliment]. They joke about thegreengrocer, just as they joke about the mother-in-law. But theycant get on without both.MRS BRIDGENORTH. What a bond between us, Collins!COLLINS. Bless you, maam, theres all sorts of bonds between allsorts of people. You are a very affable lady, maam, for aBishop's lady. I have known Bishop's ladies that would fairlyprovoke you to up and cheek them; but nobody would ever forgethimself and his place with you, maam.MRS BRIDGENORTH. Collins: you are a flatterer. You willsuperintend the breakfast yourself as usual, of course, wont you?COLLINS. Yes, yes, bless you, maam, of course. I always do. Themfashionable caterers send down such people as I never did seteyes on. Dukes you would take them for. You see the relativesshaking hands with them and asking them about the family—actually ladies saying "Where have we met before?" and all sortsof confusion. Thats my secret in business, maam. You can alwaysspot me as the greengrocer. It's a fortune to me in these days,when you cant hardly tell who any one is or isnt. [He goes outthrough the tower, and immediately returns for a moment toannounce] The General, maam.Mrs Bridgenorth rises to receive her brother-in-law, who entersresplendent in full-dress uniform, with many medals and orders.General Bridgenorth is a well set up man of fifty, with largebrave nostrils, an iron mouth, faithful dog's eyes, and muchnatural simplicity and dignity of character. He is ignorant,stupid, and prejudiced, having been carefully trained to be so;and it is not always possible to be patient with him when hisunquestionably good intentions become actively mischievous; butone blames society, not himself, for this. He would be no worse aman than Collins, had he enjoyed Collins's social opportunities.He comes to the hearth, where Mrs Bridgenorth is standing withher back to the fireplace.MRS BRIDGENORTH. Good morning, Boxer. [They shake hands]. Anotherniece to give away. This is the last of them.THE GENERAL [very gloomy] Yes, Alice. Nothing for the old warrioruncle to do but give away brides to luckier men than himself.Has—[he chokes] has your sister come yet?MRS BRIDGENORTH. Why do you always call Lesbia my sister? Dontyou know that it annoys her more than any of the rest of yourtricks?THE GENERAL. Tricks! Ha! Well, I'll try to break myself of it;but I think she might bear with me in a little thing like that.She knows that her name sticks in my throat. Better call her yoursister than try to call her L— [he almost breaks down] L— well,call her by her name and make a fool of myself by crying. [Hesits down at the near end of the table].MRS BRIDGENORTH [going to him and rallying him] Oh come, Boxer!Really, really! We are no longer boys and girls. You cant keep upa broken heart all your life. It must be nearly twenty yearssince she refused you. And you know that it's not because shedislikes you, but only that she's not a marrying woman.THE GENERAL. It's no use. I love her still. And I cant helptelling her so whenever we meet, though I know it makes her avoidme. [He all but weeps].MRS BRIDGENORTH. What does she say when you tell her?THE GENERAL. Only that she wonders when I am going to grow out ofit. I know now that I shall never grow out of it.MRS BRIDGENORTH. Perhaps you would if you married her. Ibelieve youre better as you are, Boxer.THE GENERAL. I'm a miserable man. I'm really sorry to be aridiculous old bore, Alice; but when I come to this house for awedding—to these scenes—to—to recollections of the past—always to give the bride to somebody else, and never to have mybride given to me—[he rises abruptly] May I go into the gardenand smoke it off?MRS BRIDGENORTH. Do, Boxer.Collins returns with the wedding cake.MRS BRIDGENORTH. Oh, heres the cake. I believe it's the same onewe had for Florence's wedding.THE GENERAL. I cant bear it [he hurries out through the gardendoor].COLLINS [putting the cake on the table] Well, look at that,maam! Aint it odd that after all the weddings he's given away at,the General cant stand the sight of a wedding cake yet. It alwaysseems to give him the same shock.MRS BRIDGENORTH. Well, it's his last shock. You have married thewhole family now, Collins. [She takes up The Times again andresumes her seat].COLLINS. Except your sister, maam. A fine character of a lady,maam, is Miss Grantham. I have an ambition to arrange her weddingbreakfast.MRS BRIDGENORTH. She wont marry, Collins.COLLINS. Bless you, maam, they all say that. You and me said it,I'll lay. I did, anyhow.MRS BRIDGENORTH. No: marriage came natural to me. I should havethought it did to you too.COLLINS [pensive] No, maam: it didnt come natural. My wife had tobreak me into it. It came natural to her: she's what you mightcall a regular old hen. Always wants to have her family withinsight of her. Wouldnt go to bed unless she knew they was all safeat home and the door locked, and the lights out. Always wants herluggage in the carriage with her. Always goes and makes theengine driver promise her to be careful. She's a born wife andmother, maam. Thats why my children all ran away from home.MRS BRIDGENORTH. Did you ever feel inclined to run away, Collins?COLLINS. Oh yes, maam, yes: very often. But when it came to thepoint I couldnt bear to hurt her feelings. Shes a sensitive,affectionate, anxious soul; and she was never brought up to knowwhat freedom is to some people. You see, family life is all thelife she knows: she's like a bird born in a cage, that would dieif you let it loose in the woods. When I thought how little itwas to a man of my easy temper to put up with her, and how deepit would hurt her to think it was because I didnt care for her, Ialways put off running away till next time; and so in the end Inever ran away at all. I daresay it was good for me to be tooksuch care of; but it cut me off from all my old friends somethingdreadful, maam: especially the women, maam. She never gave them achance: she didnt indeed. She never understood that marriedpeople should take holidays from one another if they are to keepat all fresh. Not that I ever got tired of her, maam; but my! howI used to get tired of home life sometimes. I used to catchmyself envying my brother George: I positively did, maam.MRS BRIDGENORTH. George was a bachelor then, I suppose?COLLINS. Bless you, no, maam. He married a very fine figure of awoman; but she was that changeable and what you might callsusceptible, you would not believe. She didnt seem to have anycontrol over herself when she fell in love. She would mope for acouple of days, crying about nothing; and then she would up andsay—no matter who was there to hear her—"I must go to him,George"; and away she would go from her home and her husbandwithout with-your-leave or by-your-leave.MRS BRIDGENORTH. But do you mean that she did this more thanonce? That she came back?COLLINS. Bless you, maam, she done it five times to my ownknowledge; and then George gave up telling us about it, he got soused to it.MRS BRIDGENORTH. But did he always take her back?COLLINS. Well, what could he do, maam? Three times out of fourthe men would bring her back the same evening and no harm done.Other times theyd run away from her. What could any man with aheart do but comfort her when she came back crying at the waythey dodged her when she threw herself at their heads, pretendingthey was too noble to accept the sacrifice she was making. Georgetold her again and again that if she'd only stay at home and holdoff a bit theyd be at her feet all day long. She got sensible atlast and took his advice. George always liked change of company.MRS BRIDGENORTH. What an odious woman, Collins! Dont you thinkso?COLLINS [judicially] Well, many ladies with a domestic turnthought so and said so, maam. But I will say for Mrs George thatthe variety of experience made her wonderful interesting. Thatswhere the flighty ones score off the steady ones, maam. Look atmy old woman! She's never known any man but me; and she cantproperly know me, because she dont know other men to compare mewith. Of course she knows her parents in—well, in the way onedoes know one's parents not knowing half their lives as you mightsay, or ever thinking that they was ever young; and she knew herchildren as children, and never thought of them as independenthuman beings till they ran away and nigh broke her heart for aweek or two. But Mrs George she came to know a lot about men ofall sorts and ages; for the older she got the younger she likedem; and it certainly made her interesting, and gave her a lot ofsense. I have often taken her advice on things when my own poorold woman wouldnt have been a bit of use to me.MRS BRIDGENORTH. I hope you dont tell your wife that you goelsewhere for advice.COLLINS. Lord bless you, maam, I'm that fond of my old Matildathat I never tell her anything at all for fear of hurting herfeelings. You see, she's such an out-and-out wife and mother thatshe's hardly a responsible human being out of her house, exceptwhen she's marketing.MRS BRIDGENORTH. Does she approve of Mrs George?COLLINS. Oh, Mrs George gets round her. Mrs George can get roundanybody if she wants to. And then Mrs George is very particularabout religion. And shes a clairvoyant.MRS BRIDGENORTH [surprised] A clairvoyant!COLLINS [calm] Oh yes, maam, yes. All you have to do is tomesmerize her a bit; and off she goes into a trance, and says themost wonderful things! not things about herself, but as if it wasthe whole human race giving you a bit of its mind. Oh, wonderful,maam, I assure you. You couldnt think of a game that Mrs Georgeisnt up to.Lesbia Grantham comes in through the tower. She is a tall,handsome, slender lady in her prime; that is, between 36 and 55.She has what is called a well-bred air, dressing very carefullyto produce that effect without the least regard for the latestfashions, sure of herself, very terrifying to the young and shy,fastidious to the ends of her long finger-tips, and tolerant andamused rather than sympathetic.LESBIA. Good morning, dear big sister.MRS BRIDGENORTH. Good morning, dear little sister. [They kiss].LESBIA. Good morning, Collins. How well you are looking! And howyoung! [She turns the middle chair away from the table and sitsdown].COLLINS. Thats only my professional habit at a wedding, Miss. Youshould see me at a political dinner. I look nigh seventy.[Looking at his watch] Time's getting along, maam. May I send upword from you to Miss Edith to hurry a bit with her dressing?MRS BRIDGENORTH. Do, Collins.Collins goes out through the tower, taking the cake with him.LESBIA. Dear old Collins! Has he told you any stories thismorning?MRS BRIDGENORTH. Yes. You were just late for a particularlythrilling invention of his.LESBIA. About Mrs George?MRS BRIDGENORTH. Yes. He says she's a clairvoyant.LESBIA. I wonder whether he really invented George, or stole herout of some book.MRS BRIDGENORTH. I wonder!LESBIA. Wheres the Barmecide?MRS BRIDGENORTH. In the study, working away at his new book. Hethinks no more now of having a daughter married than of having anegg for breakfast.The General, soothed by smoking, comes in from the garden.THE GENERAL [with resolute bonhomie] Ah, Lesbia!MRS BRIDGENORTH. How do you do? [They shake hands; and he takesthe chair on her right].Mrs Bridgenorth goes out through the tower.LESBIA. How are you, Boxer? You look almost as gorgeous as thewedding cake.THE GENERAL. I make a point of appearing in uniform whenever Itake part in any ceremony, as a lesson to the subalterns. It isnot the custom in England; but it ought to be.LESBIA. You look very fine, Boxer. What a frightful lot ofbravery all these medals must represent!THE GENERAL. No, Lesbia. They represent despair and cowardice. Iwon all the early ones by trying to get killed. You know why.LESBIA. But you had a charmed life?THE GENERAL. Yes, a charmed life. Bayonets bent on my buckles.Bullets passed through me and left no trace: thats the worst ofmodern bullets: Ive never been hit by a dum-dum. When I was onlya company officer I had at least the right to expose myself todeath in the field. Now I'm a General even that resource is cutoff. [Persuasively drawing his chair nearer to her] Listen to me,Lesbia. For the tenth and last time—LESBIA [interrupting] On Florence's wedding morning, two yearsago, you said "For the ninth and last time."THE GENERAL. We are two years older, Lesbia. I'm fifty: youare—LESBIA. Yes, I know. It's no use, Boxer. When will you be oldenough to take no for an answer?THE GENERAL. Never, Lesbia, never. You have never given me a realreason for refusing me yet. I once thought it was somebody else.There were lots of fellows after you; but now theyve all given itup and married. [Bending still nearer to her] Lesbia: tell meyour secret. Why—LESBIA [sniffing disgustedly] Oh! Youve been smoking. [She risesand goes to the chair on the hearth] Keep away, you wretch.THE GENERAL. But for that pipe, I could not have faced youwithout breaking down. It has soothed me and nerved me.LESBIA [sitting down with The Times in her hand] Well, it hasnerved me to tell you why I'm going to be an old maid.THE GENERAL [impulsively approaching her] Dont say that, Lesbia.It's not natural: it's not right: it's—LESBIA. [fanning him off] No: no closer, Boxer, please. [Heretreats, discouraged]. It may not be natural; but it happens allthe time. Youll find plenty of women like me, if you care to lookfor them: women with lots of character and good looks and moneyand offers, who wont and dont get married. Cant you guess why?THE GENERAL. I can understand when there is another.LESBIA. Yes; but there isnt another. Besides, do you suppose Ithink, at my time of life, that the difference between one decentsort of man and another is worth bothering about?THE GENERAL. The heart has its preferences, Lesbia. One image,and one only, gets indelibly—LESBIA. Yes. Excuse my interrupting you so often; but yoursentiments are so correct that I always know what you are goingto say before you finish. You see, Boxer, everybody is not likeyou. You are a sentimental noodle: you dont see women as theyreally are. You dont see me as I really am. Now I do see men asthey really are. I see you as you really are.THE GENERAL [murmuring] No: dont say that, Lesbia.LESBIA. I'm a regular old maid. I'm very particular about mybelongings. I like to have my own house, and to have it tomyself. I have a very keen sense of beauty and fitness andcleanliness and order. I am proud of my independence and jealousfor it. I have a sufficiently well-stocked mind to be very goodcompany for myself if I have plenty of books and music. The onething I never could stand is a great lout of a man smoking allover my house and going to sleep in his chair after dinner, anduntidying everything. Ugh!THE GENERAL. But love—LESBIA. Ob, love! Have you no imagination? Do you think I havenever been in love with wonderful men? heroes! archangels!princes! sages! even fascinating rascals! and had the strangestadventures with them? Do you know what it is to look at a merereal man after that? a man with his boots in every corner, andthe smell of his tobacco in every curtain?THE GENERAL [somewhat dazed] Well but—excuse my mentioningit—dont you want children?LESBIA. I ought to have children. I should be a good mother tochildren. I believe it would pay the country very well to pay mevery well to have children. But the country tells me that I canthave a child in my house without a man in it too; so I tell thecountry that it will have to do without my children. If I am tobe a mother, I really cannot have a man bothering me to be a wifeat the same time.THE GENERAL. My dear Lesbia: you know I dont wish to beimpertinent; but these are not the correct views for an Englishlady to express.LESBIA. That is why I dont express them, except to gentlemen whowont take any other answer. The difficulty, you see, is that Ireally am an English lady, and am particularly proud of beingone.THE GENERAL. I'm sure of that, Lesbia: quite sure of it. I nevermeant—LESBIA [rising impatiently] Oh, my dear Boxer, do please try tothink of something else than whether you have offended me, andwhether you are doing the correct thing as an English gentleman.You are faultless, and very dull. [She shakes her shouldersintolerantly and walks across to the other side of the kitchen].THE GENERAL [moodily] Ha! thats whats the matter with me. Notclever. A poor silly soldier man.LESBIA. The whole matter is very simple. As I say, I am anEnglish lady, by which I mean that I have been trained to dowithout what I cant have on honorable terms, no matter what itis.THE GENERAL. I really dont understand you, Lesbia.LESBIA [turning on him] Then why on earth do you want to marry awoman you dont understand?THE GENERAL. I dont know. I suppose I love you.LESBIA. Well, Boxer, you can love me as much as you like,provided you look happy about it and dont bore me. But you cantmarry me; and thats all about it.THE GENERAL. It's so frightfully difficult to argue the matterfairly with you without wounding your delicacy by oversteppingthe bounds of good taste. But surely there are calls of nature—LESBIA. Dont be ridiculous, Boxer.THE GENERAL. Well, how am I to express it? Hang it all, Lesbia,dont you want a husband?LESBIA. No. I want children; and I want to devote myself entirelyto my children, and not to their father. The law will not allowme to do that; so I have made up my mind to have neither husbandnor children.THE GENERAL. But, great Heavens, the natural appetites—LESBIA. As I said before, an English lady is not the slave of herappetites. That is what an English gentleman seems incapable ofunderstanding. [She sits down at the end of the table, near thestudy door].THE GENERAL [huffily] Oh well, if you refuse, you refuse. I shallnot ask you again. I'm sorry I returned to the subject. [Heretires to the hearth and plants himself there, wounded andlofty].LESBIA. Dont be cross, Boxer.THE GENERAL. I'm not cross, only wounded, Lesbia. And when youtalk like that, I dont feel convinced: I only feel utterly at aloss.LESBIA. Well, you know our family rule. When at a loss consultthe greengrocer. [Opportunely Collins comes in through thetower]. Here he is.COLLINS. Sorry to be so much in and out, Miss. I thought MrsBridgenorth was here. The table is ready now for the breakfast,if she would like to see it.LESBIA. If you are satisfied, Collins, I am sure she will be.THE GENERAL. By the way, Collins: I thought theyd made you analderman.COLLINS. So they have, General.THE GENERAL. Then wheres your gown?COLLINS. I dont wear it in private life, General.THE GENERAL. Why? Are you ashamed of it?COLLINS. No, General. To tell you the truth, I take a pride init. I cant help it.THE GENERAL. Attention, Collins. Come here. [Collins comes tohim]. Do you see my uniform—all my medals?COLLINS. Yes, General. They strike the eye, as it were.THE GENERAL. They are meant to. Very well. Now you know, dontyou, that your services to the community as a greengrocer are asimportant and as dignified as mine as a soldier?COLLINS. I'm sure it's very honorable of you to say so, General.THE GENERAL [emphatically] You know also, dont you, that any manwho can see anything ridiculous, or unmanly, or unbecoming inyour work or in your civic robes is not a gentleman, but ajumping, bounding, snorting cad?COLLINS. Well, strictly between ourselves, that is my opinion,General.THE GENERAL. Then why not dignify my niece's wedding by wearingyour robes?COLLINS. A bargain's a bargain, General. Mrs Bridgenorth sent forthe greengrocer, not for the alderman. It's just as unpleasant toget more than you bargain for as to get less.THE GENERAL. I'm sure she will agree with me. I attach importanceto this as an affirmation of solidarity in the service of thecommunity. The Bishop's apron, my uniform, your robes: theChurch, the Army, and the Municipality.COLLINS [retiring] Very well, General. [He turns dubiously toLesbia on his way to the tower]. I wonder what my wife will say,Miss?THE GENERAL. What! Is your, wife ashamed of your robes?COLLINS. No, sir, not ashamed of them. But she grudged the moneyfor them; and she will be afraid of my sleeves getting into thegravy.Mrs Bridgenorth, her placidity quite upset, comes in with aletter; hurries past Collins; and comes between Lesbia and theGeneral.MRS BRIDGENORTH. Lesbia: Boxer: heres a pretty mess!Collins goes out discreetly.THE GENERAL. Whats the matter?MRS BRIDGENORTH. Reginald's in London, and wants to come to thewedding.THE GENERAL [stupended] Well, dash my buttons!LESBIA. Oh, all right, let him come.THE GENERAL. Let him come! Why, the decree has not been madeabsolute yet. Is he to walk in here to Edith's wedding, reekingfrom the Divorce Court?MRS BRIDGENORTH [vexedly sitting down in the middle chair] It'stoo bad. No: I cant forgive him, Lesbia, really. A man ofReginald's age, with a young wife—the best of girls, and aspretty as she can be—to go off with a common woman from thestreets! Ugh!LESBIA. You must make allowances. What can you expect? Reginaldwas always weak. He was brought up to be weak. The familyproperty was all mortgaged when he inherited it. He had tostruggle along in constant money difficulties, hustled by hissolicitors, morally bullied by the Barmecide, and physicallybullied by Boxer, while they two were fighting their own way andgetting well trained. You know very well he couldnt afford tomarry until the mortgages were cleared and he was over fifty. Andthen of course he made a fool of himself marrying a child likeLeo.THE GENERAL. But to hit her! Absolutely to hit her! He knockedher down—knocked her flat down on a flowerbed in the presence ofhis gardener. He! the head of the family! the man that standsbefore the Barmecide and myself as Bridgenorth of Bridgenorth! tobeat his wife and go off with a low woman and be divorced for itin the face of all England! in the face of my uniform andAlfred's apron! I can never forget what I felt: it was only theKing's personal request—virtually a command—that stopped mefrom resigning my commission. I'd cut Reginald dead if I met himin the street.MRS BRIDGENORTH. Besides, Leo's coming. Theyd meet. It'simpossible, Lesbia.LESBIA. Oh, I forgot that. That settles it. He mustnt come.THE GENERAL. Of course he mustnt. You tell him that if he entersthis house, I'll leave it; and so will every decent man and womanin it.COLLINS [returning for a moment to announce] Mr Reginald, maam.[He withdraws when Reginald enters].THE GENERAL [beside himself] Well, dash my buttons!!Reginald is just the man Lesbia has described. He is hardened andtough physically, and hasty and boyish in his manner and speech,belonging as he does to the large class of English gentlemen ofproperty (solicitor-managed) who have never developedintellectually since their schooldays. He is a muddled,rebellious, hasty, untidy, forgetful, always late sort of man,who very evidently needs the care of a capable woman, and hasnever been lucky or attractive enough to get it. All the same, alikeable man, from whom nobody apprehends any malice nor expectsany achievement. In everything but years he is younger than hisbrother the General.REGINALD [coming forward between the General and Mrs Bridgenorth]Alice: it's no use. I cant stay away from Edith's wedding. Goodmorning, Lesbia. How are you, Boxer? [He offers the General hishand].THE GENERAL [with crushing stiffness] I was just telling Alice,sir, that if you entered this house, I should leave it.REGINALD. Well, dont let me detain you, old chap. When you startcalling people Sir, youre not particularly good company.LESBIA. Dont you begin to quarrel. That wont improve thesituation.MRS BRIDGENORTH. I think you might have waited until you got myanswer, Rejjy.REGINALD. It's so jolly easy to say No in a letter. Wont you letme stay?MRS BRIDGENORTH. How can I? Leo's coming.REGINALD. Well, she wont mind.THE GENERAL. Wont mind!!!!LESBIA. Dont talk nonsense, Rejjy; and be off with you.THE GENERAL [with biting sarcasm] At school you lead a theorythat women liked being knocked down, I remember.REGINALD. Youre a nice, chivalrous, brotherly sort of swine, youare.THE GENERAL. Mr Bridgenorth: are you going to leave this house oram I?REGINALD. You are, I hope. [He emphasizes his intention to stayby sitting down].THE GENERAL. Alice: will you allow me to be driven from Edith'swedding by this—LESBIA [warningly] Boxer!THE GENERAL. —by this Respondent? Is Edith to be given away byhim?MRS BRIDGENORTH. Certainly not. Reginald: you were not asked tocome; and I have asked you to go. You know how fond I am of Leo;and you know what she would feel if she came in and found youhere.COLLINS [again appearing in the tower] Mrs Reginald, maam.LESBIA {No, no. Ask her to— } [All threeMRS BRIDGENORTH {Oh, how unfortunate! } clamoringTHE GENERAL {Well, dash my buttons! } together].It is too late: Leo is already in the kitchen. Collins goes out,mutely abandoning a situation which he deplores but has beenunable to save.Leo is very pretty, very youthful, very restless, andconsequently very charming to people who are touched by youth andbeauty, as well as to those who regard young women as more orless appetizing lollipops, and dont regard old women at all.Coldly studied, Leo's restlessness is much less lovable than thekittenishness which comes from a rich and fresh vitality. She isa born fusser about herself and everybody else for whom she feelsresponsible; and her vanity causes her to exaggerate herresponsibilities officiously. All her fussing is about littlethings; but she often calls them by big names, such as Art, theDivine Spark, the world, motherhood, good breeding, the Universe,the Creator, or anything else that happens to strike herimagination as sounding intellectually important. She has morethan common imagination and no more than common conception andpenetration; so that she is always on the high horse about wordsand always in the perambulator about things. Considering herselfclever, thoughtful, and superior to ordinary weaknesses andprejudices, she recklessly attaches herself to clever men on thatunderstanding, with the result that they are first delighted,then exasperated, and finally bored. When marrying Reginald shetold her friends that there was a great deal in him which neededbringing out. If she were a middle-aged man she would be theterror of his club. Being a pretty young woman, she is forgiveneverything, proving that "Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner"is an error, the fact being that the secret of forgivingeverything is to understand nothing.She runs in fussily, full of her own importance, and swoops onLesbia, who is much less disposed to spoil her than MrsBridgenorth is. But Leo affects a special intimacy with Lesbia,as of two thinkers among the Philistines.LEO [to Lesbia, kissing her] Good morning. [Coming to MrsBridgenorth] How do, Alice? [Passing on towards the hearth] Whyso gloomy, General? [Reginald rises between her and the General]Oh, Rejjy! What will the King's Proctor say?REGINALD. Damn the King's Proctor!LEO. Naughty. Well, I suppose I must kiss you; but dont any ofyou tell. [She kisses him. They can hardly believe their eyes].Have you kept all your promises?REGINALD. Oh, dont begin bothering about those—LEO [insisting] Have? You? Kept? Your? Promises? Have you rubbedyour head with the lotion every night?REGINALD. Yes, yes. Nearly every night.LEO. Nearly! I know what that means. Have you worn your liverpad?THE GENERAL [solemnly] Leo: forgiveness is one of the mostbeautiful traits in a woman's nature; but there are things thatshould not be forgiven to a man. When a man knocks a woman down[Leo gives a little shriek of laughter and collapses on a chairnext Mrs Bridgenorth, on her left]REGINALD [sardonically] The man that would raise his hand to awoman, save in the way of a kindness, is unworthy the name ofBridgenorth. [He sits down at the end of the table nearest thehearth].THE GENERAL [much huffed] Oh, well, if Leo does not mind, ofcourse I have no more to say. But I think you might, out ofconsideration for the family, beat your wife in private and notin the presence of the gardener.REGINALD [out of patience] Whats the good of beating your wifeunless theres a witness to prove it afterwards? You dont supposea man beats his wife for the fun of it, do you? How could shehave got her divorce if I hadnt beaten her? Nice state of things,that!THE GENERAL [gasping] Do you mean to tell me that you did it incold blood? simply to get rid of your wife?REGINALD. No, I didn't: I did it to get her rid of me. What wouldyou do if you were fool enough to marry a woman thirty yearsyounger than yourself, and then found that she didnt care foryou, and was in love with a young fellow with a face like amushroom.LEO. He has not. [Bursting into tears] And you are most unkind tosay I didnt care for you. Nobody could have been fonder of you.REGINALD. A nice way of shewing your fondness! I had to go outand dig that flower bed all over with my own hands to soften it.I had to pick all the stones out of it. And then she complainedthat I hadnt done it properly, because she got a worm down herneck. I had to go to Brighton with a poor creature who took afancy to me on the way down, and got conscientious scruples aboutcommitting perjury after dinner. I had to put her down in thehotel book as Mrs Reginald Bridgenorth: Leo's name! Do you knowwhat that feels like to a decent man? Do you know what a decentman feels about his wife's name? How would you like to go into ahotel before all the waiters and people with—with that on yourarm? Not that it was the poor girl's fault, of course; only shestarted crying because I couldnt stand her touching me; and nowshe keeps writing to me. And then I'm held up in the public courtfor cruelty and adultery, and turned away from Edith's wedding byAlice, and lectured by you! a bachelor, and a precious green oneat that. What do you know about it?THE GENERAL. Am I to understand that the whole case was one ofcollusion?REGINALD. Of course it was. Half the cases are collusions: whatare people to do? [The General, passing his hand dazedly over hisbewildered brow, sinks into the railed chair]. And what do youtake me for, that you should have the cheek to pretend to believeall that rot about my knocking Leo about and leaving her for—fora—a— Ugh! you should have seen her.THE GENERAL. This is perfectly astonishing to me. Why did you doit? Why did Leo allow it?REGINALD. Youd better ask her.LEO [still in tears] I'm sure I never thought it would be sohorrid for Rejjy. I offered honorably to do it myself, and lethim divorce me; but he wouldnt. And he said himself that it wasthe only way to do it—that it was the law that he should do itthat way. I never saw that hateful creature until that day inCourt. If he had only shewn her to me before, I should never haveallowed it.MRS BRIDGENORTH. You did all this for Leo's sake, Rejjy?REGINALD [with an unbearable sense of injury] I shouldnt mind abit if it were for Leo's sake. But to have to do it to make roomfor that mushroom-faced serpent—!THE GENERAL [jumping up] What right had he to be made room for?Are you in your senses? What right?REGINALD. The right of being a young man, suitable to a youngwoman. I had no right at my age to marry Leo: she knew no moreabout life than a child.LEO. I knew a great deal more about it than a great baby likeyou. I'm sure I dont know how youll get on with no one to takecare of you: I often lie awake at night thinking about it. Andnow youve made me thoroughly miserable.REGINALD. Serve you right! [She weeps]. There: dont get into atantrum, Leo.LESBIA. May one ask who is the mushroom-faced serpent?LEO. He isnt.REGINALD. Sinjon Hotchkiss, of course.MRS BRIDGENORTH. Sinjon Hotchkiss! Why, he's coming to thewedding!REGINALD. What! In that case I'm off [he makes for the tower].LEO } { [seizing him] No you shant.You promised to be nice to(all four him.THE GENERAL } rushing { No, dont go, old chap. Notafter him from Edith's wedding.and capturinghim on theMRS. BRIDGE- threshold)NORTH } { Oh, do stay, Benjjy. I shallreally be hurt if you desertus.LESBIA } { Better stay, Reginald. You mustmeet him sooner or later.