MRS. JUNO [involuntarily] Oh, bother your mother! [Recovering herself]
I beg your pardon.
GREGORY. A promise is a promise. I can't tell a deliberate lie. I know
I ought to be sorry; but the flat fact is that I'm not sorry. I find
that in this business, somehow or other, there is a disastrous
separation between my moral principles and my conduct.
JUNO. There's nothing disastrous about it. It doesn't matter about your
principles if your conduct is all right.
GREGORY. Bosh! It doesn't matter about your principles if your conduct
is all right.
JUNO. But your conduct isn't all right; and my principles are.
GREGORY. What's the good of your principles being right if they won't
work?
JUNO. They WILL work, sir, if you exercise self-sacrifice.
GREGORY. Oh yes: if, if, if. You know jolly well that self-sacrifice
doesn't work either when you really want a thing. How much have you
sacrificed yourself, pray?
MRS. LUNN. Oh, a great deal, Gregory. Don't be rude. Mr. Juno is a very
nice man: he has been most attentive to me on the voyage.
GREGORY. And Mrs. Juno's a very nice woman. She oughtn't to be; but she
is.
JUNO. Why oughtn't she to be a nice woman, pray?
GREGORY. I mean she oughtn't to be nice to me. And you oughtn't to be
nice to my wife. And your wife oughtn't to like me. And my wife
oughtn't to like you. And if they do, they oughtn't to go on liking us.
And I oughtn't to like your wife; and you oughtn't to like mine; and if
we do we oughtn't to go on liking them. But we do, all of us. We
oughtn't; but we do.
JUNO. But, my dear boy, if we admit we are in the wrong where's the
harm of it? We're not perfect; but as long as we keep the ideal before
us--
GREGORY. How?
JUNO. By admitting we were wrong.
MRS. LUNN [springing up, out of patience, and pacing round the lounge
intolerantly] Well, really, I must have my dinner. These two men, with
their morality, and their promises to their mothers, and their
admissions that they were wrong, and their sinning and suffering, and
their going on at one another as if it meant anything, or as if it
mattered, are getting on my nerves. [Stooping over the back of the
chesterfield to address Mrs. Juno] If you will be so very good, my
dear, as to take my sentimental husband off my hands occasionally, I
shall be more than obliged to you: I'm sure you can stand more male
sentimentality than I can. [Sweeping away to the fireplace] I, on my
part, will do my best to amuse your excellent husband when you find him
tiresome.
JUNO. I call this polyandry.
MRS. LUNN. I wish you wouldn't call innocent things by offensive names,
Mr. Juno. What do you call your own conduct?