Lady Florence Eveleen Eleanore Olliffe Bell

“ Kirstin. Does it?
Merton. Don't you know what I mean?
Kirstin. No, I've never left a place. I've always been here.
Merton. Isn't it extraordinary!
Kirstin. What?
Merton. Why, to find you and your father here miles away from anyone, leading this life.
Kirstin. Why is it extraordinary? We've always done it.
Merton. That's just it. You've never done anything else.
Kirstin. Of course not.
Merton. And you do the same thing day after day.
Kirstin. The same thing? No. There's the feeding to look after in the winter, and the lambing in the spring, and the shearing in the summer—
Merton. ”

“ You take things for granted; you like everybody; you believe in everybody.
Carteret. Well, my experience has shewn me that you come fewer croppers in life if you believe in people, than if you're suspicious of them. It may be an illusion, but that's my experience.
Rachel. I wonder?... And there is another great difference. Women—so many women—are cowards; afraid, always afraid.
Carteret. Afraid of what, you foolish creature?
Rachel. Of all sorts of things. I was full of terrors when I was a child. ”

“ Welburn. It's you who are exciting me with all this chattering and wanting me to remember this and remember that. You're doing me a great deal of harm, and I tell you what, if I don't know anything that happened in the past I do know what's going to happen in the future, and that is that I shall punch [70] your head in a minute if you ask me any more questions—so now! [Behaves as if he were mad] .
[He jumps up] .
Rector [retreating] . Oh, pray, dear sir, keep calm. [Trying to smile] . No need for you to punch my head or any one else's.
Welburn. I'm not so sure. ”

“ What's there wonderful in it, a strong, healthy gal like that? I'd be ashamed if she didn't know what a farmer's daughter's got to know—about dipping the sheep, washing 'em, and shearing, and breaking a horse, and riding him bareback round the boundary. She'd need to be ashamed if she couldn't. And she can use her eyes and her ears. There's nothing she can't see or hear, that gal. Oh, any woman can learn to work if you just make her.
Merton. Any woman?... that kind of work? [smiling and shaking his head.]
Thwaite. I daresay women isn't much use where you come from.
Merton. I come from London. ”

“ Welburn. Dull? If I were left to myself I shouldn't be dull for a moment. I have two cherished pursuits—golf and music. I play golf and I play the 'cello. And that would be enough for me. I don't want to know about the things they talk about in the papers. My wife does. She went to College, and a woman always comes away from the 'Varsity with her head chock full of ideas—I never knew one who didn't—it's something awful. And my wife has views about every blessed thing that's mentioned in the papers, and she will talk to me about them all. I can't stand it any longer. ”

“ Mrs Maitland. What is it?
Mary. Something is happening at last! Look, look, something is coming down from the sky. Oh, what can it be? Yes, it's a parachute and a man hanging to it. He'll come down in the garden; I must render first aid quick.
[Rushes out] .
Mrs Maitland [agitated, goes to window, looks out, starts] . Yes. He has fallen! Oh, dear! Oh, I can't bear that kind of sight. He must be knocked to pieces. [Covers her face with her hands] . Mary has picked him up; she is wonderful.
[Goes to door L. Mary appears at door L, supporting Welburn] .
Mrs Maitland. Oh, Mary, is he dead? ”

“ A SECOND-CLASS DUKE.
Scene: A second-class railway carriage on the S.E. Railway.
At Victoria Station, S.E. Line. A railway carriage seen endways; a passenger (Tom) in it reading a paper.
Guard [opening door] . Here you are, sir; this train for Penge.
[Duke jumps into carriage breathless; Guard whistles, train goes off. Tom in corner of carriage, reading paper, looks up] .
Tom [before seeing who it is] . Ran it fine that time! [Sees Duke] Hallo, it's you, Pecky!
Duke. You, Tom! What an age since we've met.
Tom. Yes, it's a long time since the old Oxford days.
Duke. Do you live in London? ”

“ Not only of robbers and ghosts, of absurd things that never happened, but of people, who were cross or unkind ... of everything. And then I was left by myself, and I was poor, and had to earn my own living. ”

“ Mrs Jennings. Oh, yes! And it's that—and other things that made it rather difficult— [she checks herself] . But in one respect she would be a woman after your own heart.
Duke. I've no doubt she would!
Mrs Jennings. She has a passion for cookery.
Duke. I knew it!
Mrs Jennings. She understands more about dining than any other woman I ever met.
Duke. Oh, what a delightful friend to have!
Mrs Jennings. Yes, she is! She has been a very good friend to me, I must say, until—until we parted company. But why are you so interested in her? Do you know her? ”

“ Mrs Jennings. Tomatoes—
Duke. Exactly. Tomatoes, or some other fragrant product of the soil. There is to me something repulsive in the idea of a woman's mind endeavouring to grapple with magisterial problems or political research. No! Let her rather spend hours of patient investigation amongst her saucepans, endeavouring to wring from them their secrets.
Mrs Jennings. It doesn't take me as long as that, I can tell you, to find out if a saucepan is clean or dirty.
Duke. I was thinking of the finer problems of the saucepan, the delicate combinations which reveal the true artist. ”

“ I thought you'd remember—and be like you were in Australia. Oh, I didn't know you'd be like this and that you would be—oh! horrified when I came! Oh, if I could forget that! I almost can't believe it now. It's so dreadful—because I had believed something so different—when you was over there with us. I thought there could be no one else like you. I'd never seen such a fine gentleman before, and I thought there was no one else so clever [56] or so good or so handsome. Though father he was always saying you was just like other folk, neither better nor worse. ”

“ Merton [dashing his letters down] . Shrieking? What hysterical fools women are. Where is she?
Mrs Plant. In the basement, sir.
[Merton goes out hastily and angrily. Mrs Plant alone, listens. Shakes her head. A ring at the door. Mrs Plant goes out to open, leaving door open. Then comes in again.]
[Mrs Plant shows in Lady Gairloch and her daughter] .
Lady Gairloch [smiling, to Mrs Plant] . We've come very early, I fear. ”

“ Carteret. You really think so?
Rachel. Of course I do.
Carteret [still smiling] . Now, Rachel, were you in love with that young Thornton?
Rachel. No, I don't think I was. It was a boy and girl sort of thing.
Carteret [smiling, but sighing too] . Yes, boy and girl. I suppose when there are young people together that sort of thing happens.
Rachel. Oh, don't say it in that tone. You don't mean to say you're jealous of him—because he was young? [17]
Carteret [more seriously] . Jealous? Of you? Of my wife? No.
Rachel. Well, some people are. They always are in books. ”

“ Walk across the green with me to the Rectory; the air will do you good.
Mrs Maitland [faintly] . Yes, I think I will. [To Mary] . We are within call if you want us.
Mary [ironically] . Thank you, mamma. [Mary watches them out of window] . They're gone.
[Welburn sits up] .
[71] Welburn. The old fool badgering me about Oxford! That was an inspiration, wasn't it, pretending to be mad. How was it? Was that all right?
Mary. Splendid.
Welburn. Upon my word, I feel almost mad in reality when I think of his saying that I played out of tune, and raking up the Somerville girls, and all that.
Mary. ”

“ Do listen, Will—just this once!
[Carteret smiles and puts his paper down on his knee] .
Carteret. Just this once, if you're sure it won't happen again.
Rachel. I was thinking about what men are like, and what women are like.
Carteret. You see, men don't want to be taking their souls to pieces perpetually as women do, to see what they're made of. [13]
Rachel. But it is so interesting to do it, even if one's afraid of what one finds there.
Carteret. Afraid!
Rachel. Oh, yes. There are times when I'm thinking of things, when I'm all over the place. I can't help it. ”

“ Does a successful doctor cure everybody?
Merton. Not always. But a great many people come to him to be cured and give him money whether he cures them or not.
Kirstin. Do they? Then you'll have a great deal of money.
Merton. I hope so—I want it most dreadfully.
Kirstin [surprised] . Do you?
Merton. I have hardly any—that's one of my difficulties.
Kirstin. What a pity.
Merton. Oh, well, it'll come all right, I daresay, when I'm back in London and can start work.
Kirstin [looking at paper] . When you're back at 147 Devonshire Street—
[Enter Thwaite. Kirstin puts the paper back in her pocket] . ”

“ Merton. That's a bad loss.
Thwaite [smokes reflectively] . Mebbe, mebbe. But she's no need of a mother. I've learned her what she'd need to know, and though I says it, she's been brought up by an honest man to earn an honest living in honest ways. And that's enough for anyone.
Merton. It's a great deal. But is it enough for her? Doesn't she want any more?
Thwaite. I don't know—but if she did, want 'd be her master. [Passes his hand along the railing] . There's that fence going again. I believe the wood's rotting. Kirstin! [Kirstin comes out of the house with a strap in her hand] . ”