MRS TARLETON. Oh, you are tiresome. As if it mattered to anyone what you saw. Me! A married woman that might be your mother. _[To Lina]_ And I'm sure youre not particular, if youll excuse my saying so. TARLETON. Out with it. What did you see? GUNNER. I saw your daughter with my own eyes--oh well, never mind what I saw. BENTLEY. _[almost crying with anxiety]_ You beastly rotter, I'll get Joey to give you such a hiding-- TARLETON. You cant leave it at that, you know. What did you see my daughter doing? GUNNER. After all, why shouldnt she do it? The Russian students do it. Women should be as free as men. I'm a fool. I'm so full of your bourgeois morality that I let myself be shocked by the application of my own revolutionary principles. If she likes the man why shouldnt she tell him so? MRS TARLETON. I do wonder at you, John, letting him talk like this before everybody. _[Turning rather tartly to Lina]_ Would you mind going away to the drawing-room just for a few minutes, Miss Chipenoska. This is a private family matter, if you dont mind. LINA. I should have gone before, Mrs Tarleton, if there had been anyone to protect Mr Tarleton and the young gentleman. TARLETON. Youre quite right, Miss Lina: you must stand by. I could have tackled him this morning; but since you put me through those exercises I'd rather die than even shake hands with a man, much less fight him. GUNNER. It's all of a piece here. The men effeminate, the women unsexed-- TARLETON. Dont begin again, old chap. Keep it for Trafalgar Square. HYPATIA'S VOICE OUTSIDE. No, no. _[She breaks off in a stifled half laugh, half scream, and is seen darting across the garden with Percival in hot pursuit. Immediately afterwards she appears again, and runs into the pavilion. Finding it full of people, including a stranger, she stops; but Percival, flushed and reckless, rushes in and seizes her before he, too, realizes that they are not alone. He releases her in confusion]._ _Dead silence. They are all afraid to look at one another except Mrs Tarleton, who stares sternly at Hypatia. Hypatia is the first to recover her presence of mind._ HYPATIA. Excuse me rushing in like this. Mr Percival has been chasing me down the hill. GUNNER. Who chased him up it? Dont be ashamed. Be fearless. Be truthful. TARLETON. Gunner: will you go to Paris for a fortnight? I'll pay your expenses. HYPATIA. What do you mean? GUNNER. There was a silent witness in the Turkish bath. TARLETON. I found him hiding there. Whatever went on here, he saw and heard. Thats what he means. PERCIVAL. _[sternly approaching Gunner, and speaking with deep but contained indignation]_ Am I to understand you as daring to put forward the monstrous and blackguardly lie that this lady behaved improperly in my presence? GUNNER. _[turning white]_ You know what I saw and heard.