HER HUSBAND. What is Mrs Bompas to you, I'd like to know. I'll tell
you what Mrs Bompas is. She's the smartest woman in the smartest set in
South Kensington, and the handsomest, and the cleverest, and the most
fetching to experienced men who know a good thing when they see it,
whatever she may be to conceited penny-a-lining puppies who think
nothing good enough for them. It's admitted by the best people; and not
to know it argues yourself unknown. Three of our first actor-managers
have offered her a hundred a week if she'd go on the stage when they
start a repertory theatre; and I think they know what they're about as
well as you. The only member of the present Cabinet that you might call
a handsome man has neglected the business of the country to dance with
her, though he don't belong to our set as a regular thing. One of the
first professional poets in Bedford Park wrote a sonnet to her, worth
all your amateur trash. At Ascot last season the eldest son of a duke
excused himself from calling on me on the ground that his feelings for
Mrs Bompas were not consistent with his duty to me as host; and it did
him honor and me too. But [with gathering fury] she isn't good enough
for you, it seems. You regard her with coldness, with indifference;
and you have the cool cheek to tell me so to my face. For two pins I'd
flatten your nose in to teach you manners. Introducing a fine woman to
you is casting pearls before swine [yelling at him] before SWINE! d'ye
hear?
HE [with a deplorable lack of polish] You call me a swine again and I'll
land you one on the chin that'll make your head sing for a week.
HER HUSBAND [exploding] What--!
He charges at Henry with bull-like fury. Henry places himself on
guard in the manner of a well taught boxer, and gets away smartly,
but unfortunately forgets the stool which is just behind him. He falls
backwards over it, unintentionally pushing it against the shins of
Bompas, who falls forward over it. Mrs Bompas, with a scream, rushes
into the room between the sprawling champions, and sits down on the
floor in order to get her right arm round her husband's neck.
SHE. You shan't, Teddy: you shan't. You will be killed: he is a
prizefighter.
HER HUSBAND [vengefully] I'll prizefight him. [He struggles vainly to
free himself from her embrace].
SHE. Henry: don't let him fight you. Promise me that you won't.
HE [ruefully] I have got a most frightful bump on the back of my head.
[He tries to rise].
SHE [reaching out her left hand to seize his coat tail, and pulling him
down again, whilst keeping fast hold of Teddy with the other hand] Not
until you have promised: not until you both have promised. [Teddy tries
to rise: she pulls him back again]. Teddy: you promise, don't you? Yes,
yes. Be good: you promise.
HER HUSBAND. I won't, unless he takes it back.
SHE. He will: he does. You take it back, Henry?--yes.
HE [savagely] Yes. I take it back. [She lets go his coat. He gets up. So
does Teddy]. I take it all back, all, without reserve.
SHE [on the carpet] Is nobody going to help me up? [They each take a
hand and pull her up]. Now won't you shake hands and be good?
HE [recklessly] I shall do nothing of the sort. I have steeped myself in
lies for your sake; and the only reward I get is a lump on the back of
my head the size of an apple. Now I will go back to the straight path.