MARGARET. You musn’t get impatient with your aunt. She can’t get accustomed to the new ways, that’s all. I--I can’t myself, sometimes. [_Restlessly_] I hope I’m doing right. SYDNEY. Oh, I do think it’s morbid to have a conscience. If Father had been dead fifteen years, would you say, “I hope I’m doing right”? And he _is_ dead. His mind’s dead. You know you’ve done all you can. And you’re frightfully in love with Gray-- MARGARET. [_Flushing_] Don’t, Sydney! SYDNEY. Well, you are, and so he is with you. So what’s the worry about? Aunt Hester! What people like Aunt Hester choose to think! I call it morbid. MARGARET. [_Whimsically_] I suppose I haven’t brought you up properly. Your aunt’s quite right! SYDNEY. Yes. That’s what it always comes back to. “Your aunt’s quite right!” I can argue with you by the hour-- MARGARET. [_Hastily_] Oh, not this morning, darling, will you? SYDNEY.--and Gray can argue with you by the hour-- MARGARET. [_Smiling_] Ah, but he never does. SYDNEY.--and you pretend to agree with us; but underneath your common sense, your mind’s really thinking--“Your aunt’s quite right!” MARGARET. She stands for the old ways, Sydney. SYDNEY. She stands for Noah and the flood. She’d no business to go dragging up Father and the divorce on Christmas morning to upset you. MARGARET. It wasn’t your aunt. SYDNEY. Then it was me, I suppose! “If I could only control my tongue and my temper,” and all the rest of it! MARGARET. [_Quietly_] No, it was about Kit. SYDNEY. Kit? Oh, that’s all right, Mother. Don’t you worry about me and Kit. MARGARET. I do. SYDNEY. You needn’t. MARGARET. [_Shyly_] You see, I thought I was in love at seventeen, too. SYDNEY. Oh, but I quite know what I’m doing. MARGARET. And now I know I didn’t know much about it. I don’t want you to be--rushed. SYDNEY. Nobody could make me do what I didn’t want to do. MARGARET. [_Forgetting_ SYDNEY] It was nobody’s fault. It was the war-- [_She sits, dreaming._] SYDNEY. It’s extraordinary to me--whenever you middle-aged people want to excuse yourselves for anything you’ve done that you know you oughtn’t to have done, you say it was the war. How could a war make you get married if you didn’t want to? MARGARET. [_Groping for words_] It was the feel in the air. They say the smell of blood sends horses crazy. That was the feel. One did mad things. Hilary--your father--he was going out--the trenches--to be hurt. And he was so fond of me he frightened me. I was so sorry. I thought I cared. Can’t you understand? SYDNEY. No. Either you care or you don’t. MARGARET. [_Passionately_] How can you know until it happens to you? How was I to know there was more to it than keeping house and looking after Hilary--and you? How was I to know? SYDNEY. [_Doubtfully_] Is there so much more to it? MARGARET. Yes. SYDNEY. I don’t believe there is for some people. Why it’s just what I want--to look after Kit and a house of my own, and--oh, at least half a dozen kids.