MRS HUSHABYE [moving towards the sofa] It’s too late to telegraph tonight.

MAZZINI I suppose so. I do hope he’ll wake up in the course of the night. [He goes out into the garden.]

ELLIE [turning rigorously on HESIONE the moment her father is out of the room]. Hesione, what the devil do you mean by making mischief with my father about Mangan?

MRS HUSHABYE [promptly losing her temper] Don’t you dare speak to me like that, you little minx. Remember that you are in my house.

ELLIE Stuff! Why don’t you mind your own business? What is it to you whether I choose to marry Mangan or not? MRS HUSHABYE Do you suppose you can bully me, you miserable little matrimonial adventurer?

ELLIE Every woman who hasn’t any money is a matrimonial adventurer. It’s easy for you to talk: you have never known what it is to want money; and you can pick up men as if they were daisies. I am poor and respectable —

MRS HUSHABYE [interrupting] Ho! respectable! How did you pick up Mangan? How did you pick up my husband? You have the audacity to tell me that I am a — a — a —

ELLIE A siren. So you are. You were born to lead men by the nose: if you weren‘t, Marcus would have waited for me, perhaps.

MRS HUSHABYE [suddenly melting and half laughing] Oh, my poor Ellie, my pettikins, my unhappy darling! I am so sorry about Hector. But what can I do? It’s not my fault: I’d give him to you if I could.

ELLIE I don’t blame you for that.

MRS HUSHABYE What a brute I was to quarrel with you and call you names! Do kiss me and say you’re not angry with me.

ELLIE [fiercely] Oh, don’t slop and gush and be sentimental. Don’t you see that unless I can be hard — as hard as nails — I shall go mad? I don’t care a damn about your calling me names: do you think a woman in my situation can feel a few hard words?

MRS HUSHABYE Poor little woman! Poor little situation!

ELLIE I suppose you think you’re being sympathetic. You are just foolish and stupid and selfish. You see me getting a smasher right in the face that kills a whole part of my life: the best part that can never come again; and you think you can help me over it by a little coaxing and kissing. When I want all the strength I can get to lean on: something iron, something stony, I don’t care how cruel it is, you go all mushy and want to slobber over me. I’m not angry; I’m not unfriendly; but for God’s sake do pull yourself together; and don’t think that because you’re on velvet and always have been, women who are in hell can take it as easily as you.

MRS HUSHABYE [shrugging her shoulders] Very well. [She sits down on the sofa in her old place.] But I warn you that when I am neither coaxing and kissing nor laughing, I am just wondering how much longer I can stand living in this cruel, damnable world. You object to the siren: well, I drop the siren. You want to rest your wounded bosom against a grindstone. Well [folding her arms], here is the grindstone.

ELLIE [sitting down beside her, appeased] That’s better: you really have the trick of falling in with everyone’s mood; but you don’t understand, because you are not the sort of woman for whom there is only one man and only one chance.

MRS HUSHABYE I certainly don’t understand how your marrying that object [indicating MANGAN] will console you for not being able to marry Hector.

ELLIE Perhaps you don’t understand why I was quite a nice girl this morning, and am now neither a girl nor particularly nice.

MRS HUSHABYE Oh, yes, I do. It’s because you have made up your mind to do something despicable and wicked.

ELLIE I don’t think so, Hesione. I must make the best of my ruined house.

MRS HUSHABYE Pooh!You’ll get over it.Your house isn’t ruined.

ELLIE Of course I shall get over it. You don’t suppose I’m to sit down and die of a broken heart, I hope, or be an old maid living on a pittance from the Sick and Indigent Roomkeepers’ Association. But my heart is broken, all the same. What I mean by that is that I know that what has happened to me with Marcus will not happen to me ever again. In the world for me there is Marcus and a lot of other men of whom one is just the same as another. Well, if I can’t have love, that’s no reason why I should have poverty. If Mangan has nothing else, he has money.

MRS HUSHABYE And are there no young men with money.

ELLIE Not within my reach. Besides, a young man would have the right to expect love from me, and would perhaps leave me when he found I could not give it to him. Rich young men can get rid of their wives, you know, pretty cheaply. But this object, as you call him, can expect nothing more from me than I am prepared to give him.

MRS HUSHABYE He will be your owner, remember. If he buys you, he will make the bargain pay him and not you. Ask your father.

ELLIE [rising and strolling to the chair to contemplate their subject] You need not trouble on that score, Hesione. I have more to give Boss Mangan than he has to give me: it is I who am buying him, and at a pretty good price too, I think. Women are better at that sort of bargain than men. I have taken the Boss’s measure; and ten Boss Mangans shall not prevent me doing far more as I please as his wife than I have ever been able to do as a poor girl. [Stooping to the recumbent figure.] Shall they, Boss? I think not. [She passes on to the drawing-table, and leans against the end of it, facing the windows.] I shall not have to spend most of my time wondering how long my gloves will last, anyhow.

MRS HUSHABYE [rising superbly] Ellie, you are a wicked, sordid little beast. And to think that I actually condescended to fascinate that creature there to save you from him! Well, let me tell you this: if you make this disgusting match, you will never see Hector again if I can help it.

ELLIE [unmoved] I nailed Mangan by telling him that if he did not marry me he should never see you again [she lifts herself on her wrists and seats herself on the end of the table].

MRS HUSHABYE [recoiling] Oh!

ELLIE So you see I am not unprepared for your playing that trump against me. Well, you just try it: that’s all. I should have made a man of Marcus, not a household pet.

MRS HUSHABYE [flaming] You dare!

ELLIE [looking almost dangerous] Set him thinking about me if you dare.

MRS HUSHABYE Well, of all the impudent little fiends I ever met! Hector says there is a certain point at which the only answer you can give to a man who breaks all the rules is to knock him down. What would you say if I were to box your ears?

ELLIE [calmly] I should pull your hair.

MRS HUSHABYE [mischievously] That wouldn’t hurt me. Perhaps it comes off at night.

ELLIE [so taken aback that she drops off the table and runs to her] Oh, you don’t mean to say, Hesione, that your beautiful black hair is false?

MRS HUSHABYE [patting it] Don’t tell Hector. He believes in it.

ELLIE [groaning] Oh! Even the hair that ensnared him false! Everything false!

MRS HUSHABYE Pull it and try. Other women can snare men in their hair; but I can swing a baby on mine. Aha! you can’t do that, Goldylocks.

ELLIE [heartbroken] No. You have stolen my babies.

MRS HUSHABYE Pettikins, don’t make me cry. You know what you said about my making a household pet of him is a little true. Perhaps he ought to have waited for you. Would any other woman on earth forgive you?

ELLIE Oh, what right had you to take him all for yourself! [Pulling herself together.] There! You couldn’t help it: neither of us could help it. He couldn’t help it. No, don’t say anything more: I can’t bear it. Let us wake the object. [She begins stroking MANGAN’s head, reversing the movement with which she put him to sleep.] Wake up, do you hear? You are to wake up at once. Wake up, wake up, wake —