CYNTHIA. Be a game sport then! Our marriage was a wager; you wagered you could live with me. You lost; you paid with a divorce; and now is the time to show your sporting blood. Come on, shake hands and part friends. JOHN. Not in this world! Friends with you, no! I have a proper pride. I don't propose to put my pride in my pocket. CYNTHIA. [_Jealous and plain spoken._] Oh, I wouldn't ask you to put your pride in your pocket while Vida's handkerchief is there. [JOHN _looks angered._] Pretty little bijou of a handkerchief! [_Pulling out the handkerchief._] And she is charming, and divorced, and reasonably well made up. JOHN. Oh, well, Vida is a woman. [_Toying with the handkerchief._] I'm a man, a handkerchief is a handkerchief, and, as some old Aristotle or other said, whatever concerns a woman, concerns me! CYNTHIA. [_Not oblivious of him, but in a low voice._] Insufferable! Well, yes. [_She sits down. She is too much wounded to make any further appeal._] You're perfectly right. There's no possible harmony between divorced people! I withdraw my hand and all good feeling. No wonder I couldn't stand you. Eh? However, that's pleasantly past! But at least, my dear Karslake, let us have some sort of beauty behaviour! If we cannot be decent, let us endeavour to be graceful. If we can't be moral, at least we can avoid being vulgar. JOHN. Well-- CYNTHIA. If there's to be no more marriage in the world-- JOHN. [_Cynically._] Oh, but that's not it; there's to be more and more and more! CYNTHIA. [_With a touch of bitterness._] Very well! I repeat then, if there's to be nothing but marriage and divorce, and re-marriage, and re-divorce, at least, at least, those who _are_ divorced can avoid the vulgarity of meeting each other here, there, and everywhere! JOHN. Oh, that's where you come out! CYNTHIA. I thought so yesterday, and to-day I know it. It's an insufferable thing to a woman of any delicacy of feeling to find her husband-- JOHN. Ahem--former! CYNTHIA. _Once_ a husband always-- JOHN. [_In the same cynical tone._] Oh, no! Oh, dear, no. CYNTHIA. To find her--to find the man she has once lived with--in the house of--making love to--to find you here! [JOHN _smiles and rises._] You smile,--but I say, it should be a social axiom, no woman should have to meet her former husband. JOHN. [_Cynical and cutting._] Oh, I don't know; after I've served my term I don't mind meeting my jailor. CYNTHIA. [_As_ JOHN _takes chair near her._] It's indecent--at the horse-show, the opera, at races and balls, to meet the man who once--It's not civilized! It's fantastic! It's half baked! Oh, I never should have come here! [_He sympathizes, and she grows irrational and furious._] But it's entirely your fault! JOHN. My fault? CYNTHIA. [_Working herself into a rage._] Of course. What business have you to be about--to be at large. To be at all! JOHN. Gosh!