(By this time all the ladies have gone into the house.) ARDEN: Successor! Was the word successor? (ARDEN, SWITHIN, and OSIER are excitedly searching the notes when SPIRAL passes and strolls into the house. His air of self-satisfaction increases their uneasiness they follow him. ASTRAEA and LYRA come down the path.) SCENE V ASTRAEA, LYRA LYRA: Oh! Pluriel, ask me of him! I wish I were less sure he would not be at the next corner I turn. ASTRAEA: You speak of your husband strangely, Lyra. LYRA: My head is out of a sack. I managed my escape from him this morning by renouncing bath and breakfast; and what a relief, to be in the railway carriage alone! that is, when the engine snorted. And if I set eyes on him within a week, he will hear some truths. His idea of marriage is, the taking of the woman into custody. My hat is on, and on goes Pluriel’s. My foot on the stairs; I hear his boot behind me. In my boudoir I am alone one minute, and then the door opens to the inevitable. I pay a visit, he is passing the house as I leave it. He will not even affect surprise. I belong to him, I am cat’s mouse. And he will look doating on me in public. And when I speak to anybody, he is that fearful picture of all smirks. Fling off a kid glove after a round of calls; feel your hand--there you have me now that I am out of him for my half a day, if for as long. ASTRAEA: This is one of the world’s happy marriages! LYRA: This is one of the world’s choice dishes! And I have it planted under my nostrils eternally. Spare me the mention of Pluriel until he appears; that’s too certain this very day. Oh! good husband! good kind of man! whatever you please; only some peace, I do pray, for the husband-haunted wife. I like him, I like him, of course, but I want to breathe. Why, an English boy perpetually bowled by a Christmas pudding would come to loathe the mess. ASTRAEA: His is surely the excess of a merit. LYRA: Excess is a poison. Excess of a merit is a capital offence in morality. It disgusts, us with virtue. And you are the cunningest of fencers, tongue, or foils. You lead me to talk of myself, and I hate the subject. By the way, you have practised with Mr. Arden. ASTRAEA: A tiresome instructor, who lets you pass his guard to compliment you on a hit. LYRA: He rather wins me. ASTRAEA: He does at first. LYRA: Begins Plurielizing, without the law to back him, does he? ASTRAEA: The fencing lessons are at an end. LYRA: The duetts with Mr. Swithin’s violoncello continue? ASTRAEA: He broke through the melody. LYRA: There were readings in poetry with Mr. Osier, I recollect. ASTRAEA: His own compositions became obtrusive. LYRA: No fencing, no music, no poetry! no West Coast of Africa either, I suppose.