LEO. I wont have it, Rejjy. It's disgusting.
THE BISHOP. You see, my dear, youll exhaust Sinjon's conversation
too in a week or so. A man is like a phonograph with half-a-dozen
records. You soon get tired of them all; and yet you have to sit
at table whilst he reels them off to every new visitor. In the
end you have to be content with his common humanity; and when you
come down to that, you find out about men what a great English
poet of my acquaintance used to say about women: that they all
taste alike. Marry whom you please: at the end of a month he'll
be Reginald over again. It wasnt worth changing: indeed it wasnt.
LEO. Then it's a mistake to get married.
THE BISHOP. It is, my dear; but it's a much bigger mistake not to
get married.
THE GENERAL [rising] Ha! You hear that, Lesbia? [He joins her at
the garden door].
LESBIA. Thats only an epigram, Boxer.
THE GENERAL. Sound sense, Lesbia. When a man talks rot, thats
epigram: when he talks sense, then I agree with him.
REGINALD [coming off the oak chest and looking at his watch] It's
getting late. Wheres Edith? Hasnt she got into her veil and
orange blossoms yet?
MRS BRIDGENORTH. Do go and hurry her, Lesbia.
LESBIA [going out through the tower] Come with me, Leo.
LEO [following Lesbia out] Yes, certainly.
The Bishop goes over to his wife and sits down, taking her hand
and kissing it by way of beginning a conversation with her.
THE BISHOP. Alice: Ive had another letter from the mysterious
lady who cant spell. I like that woman's letters. Theres an
intensity of passion in them that fascinates me.
MRS BRIDGENORTH. Do you mean Incognita Appassionata?
THE BISHOP. Yes.
THE GENERAL [turning abruptly; he has been looking out into the
garden] Do you mean to say that women write love-letters to you?
THE BISHOP. Of course.
THE GENERAL. They never do to me.
THE BISHOP. The army doesnt attract women: the Church does.
REGINALD. Do you consider it right to let them? They may be
married women, you know.
THE BISHOP. They always are. This one is. [To Mrs Bridgenorth]
Dont you think her letters are quite the best love-letters I get?
[To the two men] Poor Alice has to read my love-letters aloud to
me at breakfast, when theyre worth it.
MRS BRIDGENORTH. There really is something fascinating about
Incognita. She never gives her address. Thats a good sign.
THE GENERAL. Mf! No assignations, you mean?
THE Bishop. Oh yes: she began the correspondence by making a very
curious but very natural assignation. She wants me to meet her in
heaven. I hope I shall.
THE GENERAL. Well, I must say I hope not, Alfred. I hope not.
MRS BRIDGENORTH. She says she is happily married, and that love
is a necessary of life to her, but that she must have, high above
all her lovers--