HECTOR. [gratefully] You're a good fellow, Robinson, Thank you. TANNER. Talk about something else. Violet's coming from the house. HECTOR. I should esteem it a very great favor, men, if you would take the opportunity to let me have a few words with the lady alone. I shall have to cry off this trip; and it's rather a delicate-- RAMSDEN. [glad to escape] Say no more. Come Tanner, Come, Tavy. [He strolls away into the park with Octavius and Tanner, past the motor car]. Violet comes down the avenue to Hector. VIOLET. Are they looking? HECTOR. No. She kisses him. VIOLET. Have you been telling lies for my sake? HECTOR. Lying! Lying hardly describes it. I overdo it. I get carried away in an ecstasy of mendacity. Violet: I wish you'd let me own up. VIOLET. [instantly becoming serious and resolute] No, no. Hector: you promised me not to. HECTOR. I'll keep my promise until you release me from it. But I feel mean, lying to those men, and denying my wife. Just dastardly. VIOLET. I wish your father were not so unreasonable. HECTOR. He's not unreasonable. He's right from his point of view. He has a prejudice against the English middle class. VIOLET. It's too ridiculous. You know how I dislike saying such things to you, Hector; but if I were to--oh, well, no matter. HECTOR. I know. If you were to marry the son of an English manufacturer of office furniture, your friends would consider it a misalliance. And here's my silly old dad, who is the biggest office furniture man in the world, would show me the door for marrying the most perfect lady in England merely because she has no handle to her name. Of course it's just absurd. But I tell you, Violet, I don't like deceiving him. I feel as if I was stealing his money. Why won't you let me own up? VIOLET. We can't afford it. You can be as romantic as you please about love, Hector; but you mustn't be romantic about money. HECTOR. [divided between his uxoriousness and his habitual elevation of moral sentiment] That's very English. [Appealing to her impulsively] Violet: Dad's bound to find us out some day. VIOLET. Oh yes, later on of course. But don't let's go over this every time we meet, dear. You promised-- HECTOR. All right, all right, I-- VIOLET. [not to be silenced] It is I and not you who suffer by this concealment; and as to facing a struggle and poverty and all that sort of thing I simply will not do it. It's too silly. HECTOR. You shall not. I'll sort of borrow the money from my dad until I get on my own feet; and then I can own up and pay up at the same time. VIOLET. [alarmed and indignant] Do you mean to work? Do you want to spoil our marriage? HECTOR. Well, I don't mean to let marriage spoil my character. Your friend Mr Tanner has got the laugh on me a bit already about that; and-- VIOLET. The beast! I hate Jack Tanner.