LORD SUMMERHAYS. Come, Miss Tarleton. Wont you sit down? I'm very tired of standing. _[Hypatia comes from the pavilion and takes a chair at the worktable. Lord Summerhays takes the opposite chair, on her right. Percival takes the chair Johnny placed for Lina on her arrival. Tarleton sits down at the end of the writing table. Johnny remains standing. Lord Summerhays continues, with a sigh of relief at being seated.]_ We shall now get the change of subject we are all pining for. JOHNNY. _[puzzled]_ Whats that? LORD SUMMERHAYS. The great question. The question that men and women will spend hours over without complaining. The question that occupies all the novel readers and all the playgoers. The question they never get tired of. JOHNNY. But what question? LORD SUMMERHAYS. The question which particular young man some young woman will mate with. PERCIVAL. As if it mattered! HYPATIA. _[sharply]_ Whats that you said? PERCIVAL. I said: As if it mattered. HYPATIA. I call that ungentlemanly. PERCIVAL. Do you care about that? you who are so magnificently unladylike! JOHNNY. Look here, Mr Percival: youre not supposed to insult my sister. HYPATIA. Oh, shut up, Johnny. I can take care of myself. Dont you interfere. JOHNNY. Oh, very well. If you choose to give yourself away like that--to allow a man to call you unladylike and then to be unladylike, Ive nothing more to say. HYPATIA. I think Mr Percival is most ungentlemanly; but I wont be protected. I'll not have my affairs interfered with by men on pretence of protecting me. I'm not your baby. If I interfered between you and a woman, you would soon tell me to mind my own business. TARLETON. Children: dont squabble. Read Dr Watts. Behave yourselves. JOHNNY. Ive nothing more to say; and as I dont seem to be wanted here, I shall take myself off. _[He goes out with affected calm through the pavilion]._ TARLETON. Summerhays: a family is an awful thing, an impossible thing. Cat and dog. Patsy: I'm ashamed of you. HYPATIA. I'll make it up with Johnny afterwards; but I really cant have him here sticking his clumsy hoof into my affairs. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The question is, Mr Percival, are you really a gentleman, or are you not? PERCIVAL. Was Napoleon really a gentleman or was he not? He made the lady get out of the way of the porter and said, "Respect the burden, madam." That was behaving like a very fine gentleman; but he kicked Volney for saying that what France wanted was the Bourbons back again. That was behaving rather like a navvy. Now I, like Napoleon, am not all one piece. On occasion, as you have all seen, I can behave like a gentleman. On occasion, I can behave with a brutal simplicity which Miss Tarleton herself could hardly surpass. TARLETON. Gentleman or no gentleman, Patsy: what are your intentions? HYPATIA. My intentions! Surely it's the gentleman who should be asked his intentions.