(OLIVIA _comes to table_ L.C., _closes her workbox and then crosses down to settee_ R.) GEORGE (_rising and crossing down to_ OLIVIA _and placing arms lovingly on her shoulder_). Now look here, Olivia, old girl, you've been a jolly good wife to me--(_takes his arms from her shoulder_)--and we don't often have rows, and if I've been rude to you about this--lost my temper a bit perhaps, what?--I'll say I'm sorry. May I have a kiss? OLIVIA (_holding up her face_). George, darling! (_He kisses her_.) Do you love me? GEORGE. You know I do, old girl. OLIVIA. As much as Brian loves Dinah? GEORGE (_stiffly, taking her hands from his shoulders_). I've said all I want to say about that. (_He goes away from her to_ L.) OLIVIA. Oh, but there must be lots you want to say and perhaps don't like to. (_Sits on settee_ R.) Do tell me, darling. GEORGE (_coming back to_ C.). What it comes to is this. I consider that Dinah is too young to choose a husband for herself, and that Strange isn't the husband I should choose for her. OLIVIA. You were calling him Brian yesterday. GEORGE. Yesterday I regarded him as a boy, now he wants me to look upon him as a man. OLIVIA. He's twenty-four. GEORGE. Yes, and Dinah's nineteen. Ridiculous. (_Crossing up to smoking-table up_ R., _and filling his pipe which he finds on table_.) OLIVIA. If he'd been a Conservative, and thought that clouds were round, I suppose he'd have seemed older, somehow. GEORGE. That's a different point altogether. That has nothing to do with his age. OLIVIA (_innocently_). Oh, I thought it had. GEORGE (_crossing down_ C. _stuffing tobacco into his pipe_). What I am objecting to is these ridiculously early marriages before either party knows its own mind, much less the mind of the other party. (_Moving to fireplace looking for a match_.) Such marriages invariably lead to unhappiness. OLIVIA. Of course, _my_ first marriage wasn't a happy one. GEORGE. As you know, Olivia, I dislike speaking about your first marriage at all--(_takes a match from table down_ L. OLIVIA _rises slowly and goes up to_ R. _of writing-table_)--and I had no intention of bringing it up now, but since you mention it--well, there's a case in point. (_Sits on settee_ L., _lighting his pipe_.) OLIVIA (_looking back at it_). When I was eighteen, I was in love. GEORGE (_turning to her_). What? OLIVIA. Or perhaps I only thought I was, and I don't know if I should have been happy or not if I had married him. But my father made me marry Mr. Jacob Telworthy. (GEORGE _looks up at her, annoyed_.) And when things were too hot for him in England--"too hot for him"--I think that was the expression we used in those days--then we went to Australia, and I left him there. (_Goes slowly down to back of settee_ L.) And the only happy moment I had in all my married life was on the morning when I saw in the papers that he was dead. (_Leans with her arms over back of settee_.)