LUCY. You're rather hard on women, aren't you ... just because they don't
have the chances men do.
TREBELL. Do you want the chances?
LUCY. I think I'm as clever as most men I meet, though I know less, of
course.
TREBELL. Perhaps I should have offered you the secretaryship instead.
LUCY. [_Readily._] Don't you think I'm taking it in a way ... by marrying
Walter? That's fanciful of course. But marriage is a very general and
complete sort of partnership, isn't it? At least, I'd like to make mine so.
TREBELL. He'll be more under your thumb in some things if you leave him free
in others.
_She receives the sarcasm in all seriousness and then speaks to him as
she would to a child._
LUCY. Oh ... I'm not explaining what I mean quite well perhaps. Walter has
been everywhere and done everything. He speaks three languages ... which all
makes him an ideal private secretary.
TREBELL. Quite.
LUCY. Do you think he'd develop into anything else ... but for me?
TREBELL. So I have provided just a first step, have I?
LUCY. [_With real enthusiasm._] Oh, Mr. Trebell, it's a great thing for us.
There isn't anyone worth working under but you. You'll make him think and
give him ideas instead of expecting them from him. But just for that reason
he'd get so attached to you and be quite content to grow old in your shadow
... if it wasn't for me.
TREBELL. True ... I should encourage him in nothingness. What's more, I want
extra brains and hands. It's not altogether a pleasant thing, is it ... the
selfishness of the hard worked man?
LUCY. If you don't grudge your own strength, why should you be tender of
other people's?
_He looks at her curiously._
TREBELL. Your ambition is making for only second-hand satisfaction though.
LUCY. What's a woman to do? She must work through men, mustn't she?
TREBELL. I'm told that's degrading ... the influencing of husbands and
brothers and sons.
LUCY. [_Only half humorously._] But what else is one to do with them? Of
course, I've enough money to live on ... so I could take up some woman's
profession ... What are you smiling at?
TREBELL. [_Who has smiled very broadly._] As you don't mean to ... don't
stop while I tell you.
LUCY. But I'd sooner get married. I want to have children. [_The words catch
him and hold him. He looks at her reverently this time. She remembers she
has transgressed convention; then, remembering that it is only convention,
proceeds quite simply._] I hope we shall have children.
TREBELL. I hope so.
LUCY. Thank you. That's the first kind thing you've said.
TREBELL. Oh ... you can do without compliments, can't you?
_She considers for a moment._
LUCY. Why have you been talking to me as if I were someone else?
TREBELL. [_Startled._] Who else?
LUCY. No one particular. But you've shaken a moral fist so to speak. I don't
think I provoked it.
TREBELL. It's a bad parliamentary habit. I apologise.
_She gets up to go._
LUCY. Now I shan't keep you longer ... you're always busy. You've been so
easy to talk to. Thank you very much.
TREBELL. Why ... I wonder?
LUCY. I knew you would be or I shouldn't have come. You think Life's an
important thing, don't you? That's priggish, isn't it? Good-bye. We're
coming to dinner ... Aunt Julia and I. Miss Trebell arrived to ask us just
as I left.
TREBELL. I'll see you down.
LUCY. What waste of time for you. I know how the door opens.
_As she goes out_ WALTER KENT _is on the way to his room. The two nod
to each other like old friends._ TREBELL _turns away with something of
a sigh._
KENT. Just come?
LUCY. Just going.
KENT. I'll see you at dinner.
LUCY. Oh, are you to be here? ... that's nice.
LUCY _departs as purposefully as she came._ KENT _hurries to_ TREBELL,
_whose thoughts are away again by now._
KENT. I haven't been long there and back, have I? The Bishop gave me these
letters for you. He hasn't answered the last ... but I've his notes of what
he means to say. He'd like them back to-night. He was just going out. I've
one or two notes of what Evans said. Bit of a charlatan, don't you think?
TREBELL. Evans?
KENT. Well, he talked of his Flock. There are quite fifteen letters you'll
have to deal with yourself, I'm afraid.