LEO [a little huffily] After all, there are worse men than Reginald. I daresay he's not so clever as you; but still he's not such a fool as you seem to think him! THE BISHOP. Quite right, dear: stand up for your husband. I hope you will always stand up for all your husbands. [He rises and goes to the hearth, where he stands complacently with his back to the fireplace, beaming at them all as at a roomful of children]. LEO. Please dont talk as if I wanted to marry a whole regiment. For me there can never be more than two. I shall never love anybody but Rejjy and Sinjon. REGINALD. A man with a face like a-- 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.