GEORGE. I see, and now you want to experiment with a wife, and you
propose to start experimenting with _my_ niece?
BRIAN (with a shrug). Well, of course, if you--
OLIVIA. You could help the experiment, darling, by giving Dinah a good
allowance until she's twenty-one.
GEORGE. Help the experiment! I don't _want_ to help the experiment.
OLIVIA (apologetically). Oh, I thought you did.
GEORGE. You will talk as if I was made of money. What with taxes
always going up and rents always going down, it's as much as we can do
to rub along as we are, without making allowances to everybody who
thinks she wants to get married. (to BRIAN) And that's thanks to you,
my friend.
BRIAN (surprised) To me?
OLIVIA. You never told me, darling. What's Brian been doing?
DINAH (indignantly). He hasn't been doing anything.
GEORGE. He's one of your Socialists who go turning the country upside
down.
OLIVIA. But even Socialists must get married sometimes.
GEORGE. I don't see any necessity.
OLIVIA. But you'd have nobody to damn after dinner, darling, if they
all died out.
BRIAN. Really, sir, I don't see what my politics and my art have got
to do with it. I'm perfectly ready not to talk about either when I'm
in your house, and as Dinah doesn't seem to object to them--
DINAH. I should think she doesn't.
GEORGE. Oh, you can get round the women, I daresay.
BRIAN. Well, it's Dinah I want to marry and live with. So what it
really comes to is that you don't think I can support a wife.
GEORGE. Well, if you're going to do it by selling pictures, I don't
think you can.
BRIAN. All right, tell me how much you want me to earn in a year, and
I'll earn it.
GEORGE (hedging). It isn't merely a question of money. I just mention
that as one thing--one of the important things. In addition to that, I
think you are both too young to marry. I don't think you know your own
minds, and I am not at all persuaded that, with what I venture to call
your outrageous tastes, you and my niece will live happily together.
Just because she thinks she loves you, Dinah may persuade herself now
that she agrees with all you say and do, but she has been properly
brought up in an honest English country household, and--er--she--well,
in short, I cannot at all approve of any engagement between you.
(Getting up) Olivia, if this Mr.--er--Pim comes, I shall be down at
the farm. You might send him along to me.
(He walks towards the windows.)
BRIAN (indignantly). Is there any reason why I shouldn't marry a girl
who has been properly brought up?
GEORGE. I think you know my views, Strange.
OLIVIA. George, wait a moment, dear. We can't quite leave it like
this.
GEORGE. I have said all I want to say on the subject.
OLIVIA. Yes, darling, but I haven't begun to say all that _I_ want to
say on the subject.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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