CLARA: The room looks lovely, dear—you needn’t worry. Just like your mother’s dressing-room on a first night. SIMON: How restful! CLARA (_to SOREL_): Have you told her about your boy friend? SOREL (_pained_): Not boy friend, Clara. CLARA (_going round, picking up things_): Oh, well, whatever he is. SIMON: I think Sorel’s beginning to be ashamed of us all, Clara—I don’t altogether blame her; we are very slapdash. CLARA: Are you going to leave that picture in the guests’ bathroom, dear? I don’t know if it’s quite the thing—lots of pink, naked women rolling about in a field. SIMON (_severely_): Nudity can be very beautiful, Clara. CLARA: Oh, can it! Perhaps being a dresser for so long ’as spoilt me eye for it. (_She goes out._) SIMON: Clara’s looking tired. We ought to have more servants and not depend on her so much. SOREL: You know we can never keep them. You’re right about us being slapdash, Simon. I wish we weren’t. SIMON: Does it matter? SOREL: It must, I think—to other people. SIMON: It’s not our fault—it’s the way we’ve been brought up. SOREL: Well, if we’re clever enough to realise that, we ought to be clever enough to change ourselves. SIMON: I’m not sure that I want to. SOREL: We’re so awfully bad-mannered. SIMON: Not to people we like. SOREL: The people we like put up with it because they like us. SIMON: What do you mean, exactly, by bad manners? Lack of social tricks and small-talk? SOREL: We never attempt to look after people when they come here. SIMON: Why should we? It’s loathsome being looked after. SOREL: Yes, but people like little attentions. We’ve never once asked anyone if they’ve slept well. SIMON: I consider that an impertinence, anyhow. SOREL: I’m going to try to improve. SIMON: You’re only going on like this because you’ve got a mania for a diplomatist. You’ll soon return to normal. SOREL (_earnestly_): Abnormal, Simon—that’s what we are. Abnormal. People stare in astonishment when we say what we consider perfectly ordinary things. I just remarked at Freda’s lunch the other day how nice it would be if someone invented something to make all our faces go up like the Chinese, because I was so bored with them going down—and they all thought I was mad! SIMON: It’s no use worrying, darling; we see things differently, I suppose, and if people don’t like it they must lump it. SOREL: Mother’s been awfully restless lately. SIMON: Yes, I know. SOREL: Life must be terribly dull for her now, with nothing to do. SIMON: She’ll go back soon, I expect; people never retire from the stage for long. SOREL: Father will be livid if she does. SIMON: That won’t matter. [_Enter JUDITH from the garden. She is carrying an armful of flowers and wearing a tea-gown, a large garden hat, gauntlet gloves and goloshes._ JUDITH: You look awfully dirty, Simon. What have you been doing? SIMON (_nonchalantly_): Not washing very much.