LYRA: This is one of the world's choice dishes! And I have it planted under my nostrils eternally. Spare me the mention of Pluriel until he appears; that's too certain this very day. Oh! good husband! good kind of man! whatever you please; only some peace, I do pray, for the husband- haunted wife. I like him, I like him, of course, but I want to breathe. Why, an English boy perpetually bowled by a Christmas pudding would come to loathe the mess. ASTRAEA: His is surely the excess of a merit. LYRA: Excess is a poison. Excess of a merit is a capital offence in morality. It disgusts, us with virtue. And you are the cunningest of fencers, tongue, or foils. You lead me to talk of myself, and I hate the subject. By the way, you have practised with Mr. Arden. ASTRAEA: A tiresome instructor, who lets you pass his guard to compliment you on a hit. LYRA: He rather wins me. ASTRAEA: He does at first. LYRA: Begins Plurielizing, without the law to back him, does he? ASTRAEA: The fencing lessons are at an end. LYRA: The duetts with Mr. Swithin's violoncello continue? ASTRAEA: He broke through the melody. LYRA: There were readings in poetry with Mr. Osier, I recollect. ASTRAEA: His own compositions became obtrusive. LYRA: No fencing, no music, no poetry! no West Coast of Africa either, I suppose. ASTRAEA: Very well! I am on my defence. You at least shall not misunderstand me, Lyra. One intense regret I have; that I did not live in the time of the Amazons. They were free from this question of marriage; this babble of love. Why am I so persecuted? He will not take a refusal. There are sacred reasons. I am supported by every woman having the sense of her dignity. I am perverted, burlesqued by the fury of wrath I feel at their incessant pursuit. And I despise Mr. Osier and Mr. Swithin because they have an air of pious agreement with the Dame, and are conspirators behind their mask. LYRA: False, false men! ASTRAEA: They come to me. I am complimented on being the vulnerable spot. LYRA: The object desired is usually addressed by suitors, my poor Astraea! ASTRAEA: With the assumption, that as I am feminine I must necessarily be in the folds of the horrible constrictor they call Love, and that I leap to the thoughts of their debasing marriage. LYRA: One of them goes to Mr. Homeware. ASTRAEA: All are sent to him in turn. He can dispose of them. LYRA: Now that is really masterly fun, my dear; most creditable to you! Love, marriage, a troop of suitors, and uncle Homeware. No, it would not have occurred to me, and--I am considered to have some humour. Of course, he disposes of them. He seemed to have a fairly favourable opinion of Mr. Arden.