PHILIP: I doubt if the Almighty Himself could make you sensible. It wasn’t part of His conception—— ANN: But I have always known that you ought to go more to the House. PHILIP (_sharply_): What do you mean? ANN: That to be young and charming and promising and intelligent means nothing compared to being on the spot. PHILIP: How practical you are getting. ANN: It isn’t that I am getting practical; it is that every day you seem to be becoming more and more a part of me. You see, if you are always with me, it doesn’t matter quite so much that you should sometimes be away from me. PHILIP: I don’t see. ANN: Loving you used to make me unhappy, but now it makes me happy—now that I am sure. I used to feel “He isn’t looking at me, he isn’t thinking about me, his eyes aren’t even straying in my direction. He is quite happy on that sofa, quite concentrated—if only he were inattentive. But he isn’t.” But now I feel “It doesn’t matter what woman he is with, or what man—his heart is with me. I don’t need any stray looks, any accidental jealousy—he means so much to me now that I don’t want him to be anxious when he’s away from me. I want him to be confident.” When you are a little bit in love you are flattered by doubt, but when you really love you only want trust. PHILIP: You give enough trust for two. ANN: You make it so easy. PHILIP: Ann—— ANN: Yes? PHILIP (_thinks better of it_): Nothing. ANN: Did you want to tell me something? PHILIP: One can’t tell you anything. You have the divine scepticism of all the saints. ANN: What do you mean? PHILIP: All saints are unbelievers. They don’t believe in realities. They don’t even believe in mortality. ANN (_passionately_): One can’t believe in mortality. PHILIP: You must have seen enough death during the war. ANN: That is why I can’t believe in mortality. PHILIP: Doesn’t it let you down, always following your hopes? ANN: What else can one follow? PHILIP: Anyway, if it doesn’t let you down, it must let you in for things. ANN: But I like being let in for things. PHILIP: I wonder your illusions aren’t threadbare by now—you use them enough. ANN: Philip, why do you go on keeping up a silly pretence of being hard and cold and cynical and heartless? They are all such foolish things to be. People are only hard because they are frightened, and cold because they are clumsy. As for cynicism, it is so misleading; it keeps you out of touch with life. PHILIP: That seems an odd remark for a Cathcart. ANN: Uncle Bill and Aunt Emily aren’t really cynical; they are just a little out of tune with the sort of lives we live. You ought to think of them as delicious museum pieces. You watch Uncle Bill if somebody makes a pun—he glows—not because he very much likes puns, but because they make him feel young. It must be so sad to see the world drifting away out of your ken into a strange new century full of distorted angles and alien values.