"Oh, yes, you are ... very cross ... and you know what the fine for it is. If you want my opinion, here it is. I _am_ prepared to accept eugenics and blue-books as a substitute for the love of women ... if they're interesting, of course. That's all I ask of any one or anything ... that it shall interest me. I don't care what it is, so long as it doesn't bore me. Women bore me ... women in books and plays, I mean ... because they're all of a pattern: lovebirds. I've never seen a play in which the women weren't used for sloppy emotional purposes. The minute I see a woman walking on to the stage, I say to myself, 'Here comes the Slop-tap!' and as sure as I'm alive, the author immediately turns the tap on and the woman is over ears and head in slop before we're two-thirds through the first act. And they're not like that in real life, any more than we are. We aren't continually making goo-goo eyes, nor are they. I'm going to write a play one of these days that will stagger the civilised world, I tell you! It'll be bung full of women but it won't have a word of slop from beginning to end!..." "It'll be a failure," said Ninian. "Oh, from the box-office point of view, no doubt!..." "No, from the common sense point of view. I'm on the side of Quinny in this matter, and I'm as much of an authority on women as you are, Gilbert. I've loved three different barmaids and a young woman in a tobacconist's shop, and I say, what the hell is the good of talking all this rubbish about men and women trotting round as if male and female He had not created them. When I see a woman, if she's got any femininity about her at all, I want to hug her and kiss her, and I do so, if I can, and so does any man if he is a man. I belong to the masculine gender and she belongs to the feminine ... and that's all there's to be said about it. If we were neuters, we'd be characters in your play, Gilbert...." "I don't want to kiss every girl I meet," said Gilbert. They howled at him in derision. "Oh, you liar!" said Henry, forgetting his anger. "You hug women all day long, you Mormon!" Ninian roared, "or you would if they'd let you!" "That's why you react so strongly from love in your plays," Roger said judicially. "You can't leave them alone in real life...." "I don't mean to say I haven't kissed a girl or two," Gilbert admitted. "_A girl or two!_ Listen to him!" Ninian went on. "Oh, listen to the innocent babe and suckling. A girl or two! Look here, let's make a census of 'em. What was the name of that girl whose brother got sent down? Lady Something?..." "Lady Cecily!..." "Shut up!" Gilbert shouted at them, and his voice was full of rage. He stood over them, glaring at them fiercely.... "I say, Gilbert!" said Henry, "what's up?" He recovered himself. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to lose my temper!" "That's all right, Gilbert," Ninian murmured. "It was my fault. I oughtn't to have rotted you like that!" "It doesn't matter," Gilbert answered. 5