PHILIP: Why do women always want to be told that one loves them? They must know whether it is true or not. ANN: There may be truths that are better left unsaid, but there are no nice truths that are not the better for being repeated. PHILIP: Do you call love a nice truth? ANN: A respectable truth. PHILIP: So long as you change the subject. ANN: Don’t tease me, sweet. PHILIP: I’m not teasing you. ANN (_stroking his forehead_): I don’t want you to be tired or worried.... I don’t want you to have a conscience. PHILIP: Not any conscience at all? ANN: A preventive conscience but not a retrospective one. PHILIP: I think it is better to worry after than before ... a sin followed by a regret is better than a blank preceded by a doubt. ANN: It might be such a small sin and such a big regret. PHILIP: Why do you look so happy? ANN: I am so happy. PHILIP: How do you manage it? ANN: You manage most of it. PHILIP (_showing some faint emotion for the first time_): There are moments when I wish I had managed it. ANN (_kisses his hand_): Good-bye. PHILIP: Good-bye. [_Exit PHILIP._ [_ANN walks about the room singing to herself._ [_Enter LORD WILLIAM._ ANN: Uncle William, how nice of you to come early. LORD WILLIAM: One never gets you alone. ANN: I would always be alone if I knew you were coming. LORD WILLIAM: You ought not to be wasting your wiles on an old uncle; you ought to be ruining some young man with them. ANN: Is it nice for young men to be ruined? LORD WILLIAM: Delightful. ANN: When were you first ruined, Uncle Bill? LORD WILLIAM: When I was twenty-one. That was, quite properly, the method I selected for coming of age. ANN: What was she like? LORD WILLIAM: She was a circus-rider. We did things in style in those days. ANN: Was she pretty? LORD WILLIAM: She was dashing—damned expensive too. I will say that for her. Now you could ruin a young man without costing him a penny. ANN: In fact you are recommending me as an economy. LORD WILLIAM: I’m sorry, my dear. For a moment sordid financial considerations arose in my mind with the memory of Annette. We were all so affected by Ouida in those days. It never occurred to us to do anything simply. ANN: And now I suppose you think that we none of us do anything well? LORD WILLIAM: A little slipshod, a little casual, I find you. And your young men are so lacking in persistence that your young women can’t afford any subtlety. If men go about taking no for an answer they can’t expect to get “no” said to them, and there is nothing like affirmatives for taking the savour out of an affair. THOMPSON: Lady Emily Cathcart, my lady. [_Enter LADY EMILY CATHCART. She kisses ANN._ LORD WILLIAM: Emily, do you recollect that year when Molly was first attentive to you? LADY EMILY: Very clearly. LORD WILLIAM: Molly was a buffoon in those days.