LATIMER. But a big risk.... Oh, believe me, I am not so much out of the world as you think. Should I have known all about you, should I have brought you here, if I were? I know the world; I know the risks of marriage. Marriage is an art—well, it’s a profession in itself. (_Sharply_) And what are you doing? Marrying a man whose only qualification for the profession is that he has tried it once, and made a damned hash of it. LEONARD. Well, really, sir! LATIMER. Isn’t it true? LEONARD. Well—er—I admit my marriage has not been a happy one, but I venture to say—well, I don’t wish to say anything against Eustasia—— LATIMER. Go on. Life is too short for us to be gentlemen all the time. LEONARD (_explosively_). Well, then, I say that not even St. Michael and all his angels could have made a success of it. I mean, not even St. Michael. LATIMER. Yet you chose her. LEONARD. Er—well—— (_But he has nothing to say._) LATIMER (_after a pause_). Miss Anne, I am not being moral. You see, I am a very rich man, and we know on good authority that it is difficult for a very rich man to be a very good man. But being a very rich man I try to spend my money so that it makes somebody else happy besides myself. It’s the only happy way of spending money, isn’t it? And it’s my hobby to prevent people—to try if I can prevent people—making unhappy marriages.... It’s wonderful what power money gives you. Nobody realises it, because nobody ever spends it save in the obvious ways.... You may say that I should have prevented Leonard from marrying Eustasia in the first place. I have done that sometimes. I have asked two young people here—oh, properly chaperoned—and guests, not prisoners as you are—two young people who thought that they were in love, and I have tried to show each to the other in the most unromantic light.... Sometimes the engagement has been broken off. Sometimes they have married and—lived happy ever after.... But mostly it is my hobby to concentrate on those second marriages into which people plunge—with no parents now to restrain them—so much more hastily even than they plunge into their first adventure. Yet how much more carefully they should be considered, seeing that one at least of the parties has already proved his utter ignorance of the art of marriage.... And so, my dear friends, when I hear—and a rich man has many means of hearing—when I hear that two people are taking the Dover Road, as you were taking it to-night, I venture to stop them, and say, in the words of the fairy-book, “Are you _sure_ you are going to live happy ever after?” LEONARD. Your intentions may be good, but I can only repeat that your interference is utterly unwarranted, and you are entirely mistaken as to the power and authority which your money gives you. LATIMER. Authority, none. But power? (_He laughs_) Why, my dear Leonard, if I offered you a hundred thousand pounds to go back to your wife to-night, this lady would never see you again.