That"s pleasant for them. You know, men and women without end have snapped their fingers at society and laughed at it, and for a while thought they had the better of it. But all the time society was quietly smiling up its sleeve, and suddenly it put out an iron hand--and scrunched them up.
BASIL.
[Shrugging his shoulders.] It only means that a few sn.o.bs will cut me.
JOHN.
Not you--your wife.
BASIL.
I"m not such a cad as to go to a house where I can"t take my wife.
JOHN.
But you"re the last man in the world to give up these things. There"s nothing you enjoy more than going to dinner-parties and staying in country houses. Women"s smiles are the very breath of your nostrils.
BASIL.
You talk of me as if I were a tame cat. I don"t want to brag, John, but after all, I"ve shown that I"m fit for something in this world. I went to the Cape because I thought it was my duty. I intend to marry Jenny for the same reason.
JOHN.
[_Seriously._] Will you answer me one question--on your honour?
BASIL.
Yes.
JOHN.
Are you in love with her?
BASIL.
[_After a pause._] No.
JOHN.
[_Pa.s.sionately._] Then, by G.o.d, you have no right to marry her. A man has no right to marry a woman for pity. It"s a cruel thing to do. You can only end by making yourself and her entirely wretched.
BASIL.
I can"t break the poor girl"s heart.
JOHN.
You don"t know what marriage is. Even with two people who are devoted to one another, who have the same interests and belong to the same cla.s.s, it"s sometimes almost unbearable. Marriage is the most terrible thing in the world unless pa.s.sion makes it absolutely inevitable.
BASIL.
My marriage is absolutely inevitable--for another reason.
JOHN.
You talk as if such things had never happened before.
BASIL.
Oh, I know, they happen every day. It"s no business of the man"s. And as for the girl, let her throw herself in the river. Let her go to the deuce, and be hanged to her.
JOHN.
Nonsense. She can be provided for. It only needs a little discretion--and no one will be a ha"porth the wiser, nor she a ha"porth the worse.
BASIL.
But it"s not a matter of people knowing. It"s a matter of honour.
JOHN.
[_Opening his eyes._] And where precisely did the honour come in when you ...?
BASIL.
Good heavens, I"m a man like any other. I have pa.s.sions as other men have.
JOHN.
[_Gravely._] My dear Basil, I wouldn"t venture to judge you. But I think it"s rather late in the day to set up for a moralist.
BASIL.
D"you think I"ve not regretted what I did? It"s easy enough afterwards to say that I should have resisted. The world would be a Sunday School if we were all as level-headed at night as we are next morning.
JOHN.
[_Shaking his head._] After all, it"s only a very regrettable incident due to your youth and--want of innocence.
BASIL.
[_With vehement seriousness._] I may have acted like a cur. I don"t know. I acted as I suppose every other man would. But now I have a plain duty before me, and, by G.o.d, I mean to do it.
JOHN.
Don"t you realise that you"ve only one life and that mistakes are irreparable? People play with life as if it were a game of chess in which they can try this move and that, and when they get into a muddle, sweep the board clear and begin again.
BASIL.