LOMAX. Oh I say! [He goes out]. LADY BRITOMART [continuing] But you, Adolphus, can behave yourself if you choose to. I insist on your staying. CUSINS. My dear Lady Brit: there are things in the family prayer book that I couldn't bear to hear you say. LADY BRITOMART. What things, pray? CUSINS. Well, you would have to say before all the servants that we have done things we ought not to have done, and left undone things we ought to have done, and that there is no health in us. I cannot bear to hear you doing yourself such an unjustice, and Barbara such an injustice. As for myself, I flatly deny it: I have done my best. I shouldn't dare to marry Barbara--I couldn't look you in the face--if it were true. So I must go to the drawingroom. LADY BRITOMART [offended] Well, go. [He starts for the door]. And remember this, Adolphus [he turns to listen]: I have a very strong suspicion that you went to the Salvation Army to worship Barbara and nothing else. And I quite appreciate the very clever way in which you systematically humbug me. I have found you out. Take care Barbara doesn't. That's all. CUSINS [with unruffled sweetness] Don't tell on me. [He goes out]. LADY BRITOMART. Sarah: if you want to go, go. Anything's better than to sit there as if you wished you were a thousand miles away. SARAH [languidly] Very well, mamma. [She goes]. Lady Britomart, with a sudden flounce, gives way to a little gust of tears. STEPHEN [going to her] Mother: what's the matter? LADY BRITOMART [swishing away her tears with her handkerchief] Nothing. Foolishness. You can go with him, too, if you like, and leave me with the servants. STEPHEN. Oh, you mustn't think that, mother. I--I don't like him. LADY BRITOMART. The others do. That is the injustice of a woman's lot. A woman has to bring up her children; and that means to restrain them, to deny them things they want, to set them tasks, to punish them when they do wrong, to do all the unpleasant things. And then the father, who has nothing to do but pet them and spoil them, comes in when all her work is done and steals their affection from her. STEPHEN. He has not stolen our affection from you. It is only curiosity. LADY BRITOMART [violently] I won't be consoled, Stephen. There is nothing the matter with me. [She rises and goes towards the door]. STEPHEN. Where are you going, mother? LADY BRITOMART. To the drawingroom, of course. [She goes out. Onward, Christian Soldiers, on the concertina, with tambourine accompaniment, is heard when the door opens]. Are you coming, Stephen? STEPHEN. No. Certainly not. [She goes. He sits down on the settee, with compressed lips and an expression of strong dislike]. ACT II