C.-C. I'll leave you.
[_He goes out._
LADY KITTY. What does he say?
ELIZABETH. Who?
LADY KITTY. Mr. Luton.
ELIZABETH. [_Gives a little start. Then she looks at LADY KITTY._]
They've told you?
LADY KITTY. Yes. And now they have I think I knew it all along.
ELIZABETH. I don't expect you to have much sympathy for me. Arnold is
your son.
LADY KITTY. So pitifully little.
ELIZABETH. I'm not suited for this sort of existence. Arnold wants me
to take what he calls my place in Society. Oh, I get so bored with
those parties in London. All those middle-aged painted women, in
beautiful clothes, lolloping round ball-rooms with rather old young
men. And the endless luncheons where they gossip about so-and-so's
love affairs.
LADY KITTY. Are you very much in love with Mr. Luton?
ELIZABETH. I love him with all my heart.
LADY KITTY. And he?
ELIZABETH. He's never cared for anyone but me. He never will.
LADY KITTY. Will Arnold let you divorce him?
ELIZABETH. No, he won't hear of it. He refuses even to divorce me.
LADY KITTY. Why?
ELIZABETH. He thinks a scandal will revive all the old gossip.
LADY KITTY. Oh, my poor child!
ELIZABETH. It can't be helped. I'm quite willing to accept the
consequences.
LADY KITTY. You don't know what it is to have a man tied to you only
by his honour. When married people don't get on they can separate, but
if they're not married it's impossible. It's a tie that only death can
sever.
ELIZABETH. If Teddie stopped caring for me I shouldn't want him to
stay with me for five minutes.
LADY KITTY. One says that when one's sure of a man's love, but when
one isn't any more--oh, it's so different. In those circumstances
one's got to keep a man's love. It's the only thing one has.
ELIZABETH. I'm a human being. I can stand on my own feet.
LADY KITTY. Have you any money of your own?
ELIZABETH. None.
LADY KITTY. Then how can you stand on your own feet? You think I'm a
silly, frivolous woman, but I've learned something in a bitter school.
They can make what laws they like, they can give us the suffrage, but
when you come down to bedrock it's the man who pays the piper who
calls the tune. Woman will only be the equal of man when she earns her
living in the same way that he does.
ELIZABETH. [_Smiling._] It sounds rather funny to hear you talk like
that.
LADY KITTY. A cook who marries a butler can snap her fingers in his
face because she can earn just as much as he can. But a woman in your
position and a woman in mine will always be dependent on the men who
keep them.
ELIZABETH. I don't want luxury. You don't know how sick I am of all
this beautiful furniture. These over-decorated houses are like a
prison in which I can't breathe. When I drive about in a Callot frock
and a Rolls-Royce I envy the shop-girl in a coat and skirt whom I see
jumping on the tailboard of a bus.
LADY KITTY. You mean that if need be you could earn your own living?
ELIZABETH. Yes.
LADY KITTY. What could you be? A nurse or a typist. It's nonsense.
Luxury saps a woman's nerve. And when she's known it once it becomes a
necessity.
ELIZABETH. That depends on the woman.
LADY KITTY. When we're young we think we're different from everyone
else, but when we grow a little older we discover we're all very much
of a muchness.
ELIZABETH. You're very kind to take so much trouble about me.
LADY KITTY. It breaks my heart to think that you're going to make the
same pitiful mistake that I made.
ELIZABETH. Oh, don't say it was that, don't, don't.
LADY KITTY. Look at me, Elizabeth, and look at Hughie. Do you think
it's been a success? If I had my time over again do you think I'd do
it again? Do you think he would?
ELIZABETH. You see, you don't know how much I love Teddie.
LADY KITTY. And do you think I didn't love Hughie? Do you think he
didn't love me?
ELIZABETH. I'm sure he did.
LADY KITTY. Oh, of course in the beginning it was heavenly. We felt so
brave and adventurous and we were so much in love. The first two years
were wonderful. People cut me, you know, but I didn't mind. I thought
love was everything. It _is_ a little uncomfortable when you come upon
an old friend and go towards her eagerly, so glad to see her, and are
met with an icy stare.
ELIZABETH. Do you think friends like that are worth having?
LADY KITTY. Perhaps they're not very sure of themselves. Perhaps
they're honestly shocked. It's a test one had better not put one's
friends to if one can help it. It's rather bitter to find how few one
has.
ELIZABETH. But one has some.
LADY KITTY. Yes, they ask you to come and see them when they're quite
certain no one will be there who might object to meeting you. Or else
they say to you: "My dear, you know I'm devoted to you, and I wouldn't
mind at all, but my girl's growing up--I'm sure you understand; you
won't think it unkind of me if I don't ask you to the house?"
ELIZABETH. [_Smiling._] That doesn't seem to me very serious.
LADY KITTY. At first I thought it rather a relief, because it threw
Hughie and me together more. But you know, men are very funny. Even
when they are in love they're not in love all day long. They want
change and recreation.
ELIZABETH. I'm not inclined to blame them for that, poor dears.
LADY KITTY. Then we settled in Florence. And because we couldn't get
the society we'd been used to we became used to the society we could
get. Loose women and vicious men. Snobs who liked to patronise people
with a handle to their names. Vague Italian Princes who were glad to
borrow a few francs from Hughie and seedy countesses who liked to
drive with me in the Cascine. And then Hughie began to hanker after
his old life. He wanted to go big game shooting, but I dared not let
him go. I was afraid he'd never come back.
ELIZABETH. But you knew he loved you.
LADY KITTY. Oh, my dear, what a blessed institution marriage is--for
women, and what fools they are to meddle with it! The Church is so
wise to take its stand on the indi--indi--