SIMON. What a life. Let me see now, how does one begin? Which arm is it? I believe I have forgotten the way. MARY ROSE. Then I shall make love to you. (_Playing with his hair._) Have I been a nice wife to you, Simon? I don’t mean always and always. There was that awful day when I threw the butter-dish at you. I am so sorry. But have I been a tolerably good wife on the whole, not a wonderful one, but a wife that would pass in a crowd? SIMON. Look here, if you are going to butt me with your head in that way, you must take that pin out of your hair. MARY ROSE. Have I been all right as a mother, Simon? Have I been the sort of mother a child could both love and respect? SIMON. That is a very awkward question. You must ask that of Harry Morland Blake. MARY ROSE. Have I----? SIMON. Shut up, Mary Rose. I know you: you will be crying in a moment, and you don’t have a handkerchief, for I wrapped it round the trout whose head came off. MARY ROSE. At any rate, Simon Blake, say you forgive me about the butter-dish. SIMON. I am not so sure of that. MARY ROSE. And there were some other things--almost worse than the butter-dish. SIMON. I should just say there were. MARY ROSE. Simon, how can you? There was nothing so bad as that. SIMON (_shaking his head_). I can smile at it now, but at the time I was a miserable man. I wonder I didn’t take to drink. MARY ROSE. Poor old Simon. But how stupid you were, dear, not to understand. SIMON. How could an ignorant young husband understand that it was a good sign when his wife threw the butter-dish at him? MARY ROSE. You should have guessed. SIMON. No doubt I was a ninny. But I had always understood that when a young wife--that then she took the husband aside and went red, or white, and hid her head on his bosom, and whispered the rest. I admit I was hoping for that; but all I got was the butter-dish. MARY ROSE. I suppose different women have different ways. SIMON. I hope so. (_Severely._) And that was a dastard trick you played me afterwards. MARY ROSE. Which? Oh, that! I just wanted you to be out of the way till all was over. SIMON. I don’t mean your getting me out of the house, sending me to Plymouth. The dastardliness was in not letting them tell me, when I got back, that--that he had arrived. MARY ROSE. It was very naughty of me. You remember, Simon, when you came in to my room you tried to comfort me by saying it wouldn’t be long now--and I let you maunder on, you darling. SIMON. Gazing at me with solemn, innocent eyes. You unutterable brat, Mary Rose! MARY ROSE. You should have been able to read in my face how clever I had been. Oh, Simon, when I said at last, ‘Dearest, what is that funny thing in the bassinette?’ and you went and looked, never shall I forget your face. SIMON. I thought at first it was some baby you had borrowed. MARY ROSE. I sometimes think so still. I didn’t, did I?