LADY UTTERWORD Your husband! That handsome man?

MRS HUSHABYE Well, why shouldn’t my husband be a handsome man?

RANDALL [joining them at the window] One’s husband never is, Ariadne [he sits by LADY UTTERWORD, on her right].

MRS HUSHABYE One’s sister’s husband always is, Mr Randall.

LADY UTTERWORD Don’t be vulgar, Randall. And you, Hesione, are just as bad.

ELLIE and HECTOR come in from the garden by the starboard door. Randall rises. ELLIE retires into the corner near the pantry. HECTOR comes forward; and LADY UTTERWORD rises looking her very best.

MRS. HUSHABYE Hector, this is Addy.

HECTOR [apparently surprised] Not this lady.

LADY UTTERWORD [smiling] Why not?

HECTOR [looking at her with a piercing glance of deep but respectful admiration, his moustache bristling] I thought — [pulling himself together]. I beg your pardon, Lady Utterword. I am extremely glad to welcome you at last under our roof [he offers his hand with grave courtesy].

MRS HUSHABYE She wants to be kissed, Hector.

LADY UTTERWORD Hesione! [But she still smiles.]

MRS HUSHABYE Call her Addy; and kiss her like a good brother-in-law; and have done with it. [She leaves them to themselves. ]

HECTOR Behave yourself, Hesione. Lady Utterword is entitled not only to hospitality but to civilization.

LADY UTTERWORD [gratefully] Thank you, Hector. [They shake hands cordially.]

MAZZINI DUNN is seen crossing the garden from starboard to port.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [coming from the pantry and addressing ELLIE] Your father has washed himself.

ELLIE [quite self-possessed] He often does, Captain Shotover.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER A strange conversion! I saw him through the pantry window.

MAZZINI DUNN enters through the port window door, newly washed and brushed, and stops, smiling benevolently, between MANGAN and MRS HUSHABYE.

MRS HUSHABYE [introducing] Mr Mazzini Dunn, Lady Ut — oh, I forgot: you’ve met. [Indicating ELLIE] Miss Dunn.

MAZZINI [walking across the room to take ELLIE’s hand, and beaming at his own naughty irony] I have met Miss Dunn also. She is my daughter. [He draws her arm through his caressingly.]

MRS HUSHABYE Of course: how stupid! Mr Utterword, my sister‘s — er —

RANDALL [shaking hands agreeably] Her brother-in-law, Mr Dunn. How do you do?

MRS HUSHABYE This is my husband.

HECTOR We have met, dear. Don’t introduce us any more. [He moves away to the big chair, and adds] Won’t you sit down, Lady Utterword? [She does so very graciously.]

MRS HUSHABYE Sorry. I hate it: it’s like making people show their tickets.

MAZZINI [sententiously] How little it tells us, after all! The great question is, not who we are, but what we are.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Ha! What are you?

MAZZINI [taken aback] What am I?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER A thief, a pirate, and a murderer.

MAZZINI I assure you you are mistaken.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER An adventurous life; but what does it end in? Respectability. A ladylike daughter. The language and appearance of a city missionary. Let it be a warning to all of you [he goes out through the garden].

DUNN I hope nobody here believes that I am a thief, a pirate, or a murderer. Mrs Hushabye, will you excuse me a moment? I must really go and explain. [He follows the captain.]

MRS HUSHABYE [as he goes] It’s no use.You’d really better — [but DUNN has vanished]. We had better all go out and look for some tea. We never have regular tea; but you can always get some when you want: the servants keep it stewing all day. The kitchen veranda is the best place to ask. May I show you? [She goes to the starboard door.

RANDALL [going with her] Thank you, I don’t think I’ll take any tea this afternoon. But if you will show me the garden —

MRS HUSHABYE There’s nothing to see in the garden except papa’s observatory, and a gravel pit with a cave where he keeps dynamite and things of that sort. However, it’s pleasanter out of doors; so come along.

RANDALL Dynamite! Isn’t that rather risky?

MRS HUSHABYE Well, we don’t sit in the gravel pit when there’s a thunderstorm.

LADY UTTERWORD That’s something new. What is the dynamite for?

HECTOR To blow up the human race if it goes too far. He is trying to discover a psychic ray that will explode all the explosive at the will of a Mahatma.[305]

ELLIE The captain’s tea is delicious, Mr Utterword.

MRS HUSHABYE [stopping in the doorway] Do you mean to say that you’ve had some of my father’s tea? that you got round him before you were ten minutes in the house?

ELLIE I did.

MRS HUSHABYE You little devil! [She goes out with RANDALL.]

MANGAN Won’t you come, Miss Ellie?

ELLIE I’m too tired. I’ll take a book up to my room and rest a little. [She goes to the bookshelf.]

MANGAN Right. You can’t do better. But I’m disappointed. [He follows RANDALL and MRS HUSHABYE.]

ELLIE, HECTOR, and LADY UTTERWORD are left. HECTOR is close to LADY UTTERWORD. They look at ELLIE, waiting for her to go.

ELLIE [looking at the title of a book] Do you like stories of adventure, Lady Utterword?

LADY UTTERWORD [patronizingly] Of course, dear.

ELLIE Then I’ll leave you to Mr Hushabye. [She goes out through the hall.]

HECTOR That girl is mad about tales of adventure. The lies I have to tell her!

LADY UTTERWORD [not interested in ELLIE] When you saw me what did you mean by saying that you thought, and then stopping short? What did you think?

HECTOR [folding his arms and looking down at her magnetically] May I tell you?

LADY UTTERWORD Of course.

HECTOR It will not sound very civil. I was on the point of saying, “I thought you were a plain woman.”

LADY UTTERWORD Oh, for shame, Hector! What right had you to notice whether I am plain or not?

HECTOR Listen to me, Ariadne. Until today I have seen only photographs of you; and no photograph can give the strange fascination of the daughters of that supernatural old man. There is some damnable quality in them that destroys men’s moral sense, and carries them beyond honor and dishonor. You know that, don’t you?

LADY UTTERWORD Perhaps I do, Hector. But let me warn you once for all that I am a rigidly conventional woman. You may think because I’m a Shotover that I’m a Bohemian, because we are all so horribly Bohemian. But I’m not. I hate and loathe Bohemianism. No child brought up in a strict Puritan household ever suffered from Puritanism as I suffered from our Bohemianism.

HECTOR Our children are like that. They spend their holidays in the houses of their respectable schoolfellows.

LADY UTTERWORD I shall invite them for Christmas.

HECTOR Their absence leaves us both without our natural chaperones.

LADY UTTERWORD Children are certainly very inconvenient sometimes. But intelligent people can always manage, unless they are Bohemians.

HECTOR You are no Bohemian; but you are no Puritan either: your attraction is alive and powerful. What sort of woman do you count yourself?

LADY UTTERWORD I am a woman of the world, Hector; and I can assure you that if you will only take the trouble always to do the perfectly correct thing, and to say the perfectly correct thing, you can do just what you like. An ill-conducted, careless woman gets simply no chance. An ill-conducted, careless man is never allowed within arm’s length of any woman worth knowing.

HECTOR I see. You are neither a Bohemian woman nor a Puritan woman. You are a dangerous woman.