MRS. CLANDON (sharply). Mr. Valentine: can you hold your tongue for a moment? (He looks piteously at them; then, with a despairing shrug, goes back to the ottoman and throws his hat on it.) GLORIA (confronting her mother, with deep reproach). Mother: what right had you to do it? MRS. CLANDON. I don't think I have said anything I have no right to say, Gloria. VALENTINE (confirming her officiously). Nothing. Nothing whatever. (Gloria looks at him with unspeakable indignation.) I beg your pardon. (He sits down ignominiously on the ottoman.) GLORIA. I cannot believe that any one has any right even to think about things that concern me only. (She turns away from them to conceal a painful struggle with her emotion.) MRS. CLANDON. My dear, if I have wounded your pride-- GLORIA (turning on them for a moment). My p r i d e! My pride!! Oh, it's gone: I have learnt now that I have no strength to be proud of. (Turning away again.) But if a woman cannot protect herself, no one can protect her. No one has any right to try--not even her mother. I know I have lost your confidence, just as I have lost this man's respect;-- (She stops to master a sob.) VALENTINE (under his breath). This man! (Murmuring again.) Oh! MRS. CLANDON (in an undertone). Pray be silent, sir. GLORIA (continuing). --but I have at least the right to be left alone in my disgrace. I am one of those weak creatures born to be mastered by the first man whose eye is caught by them; and I must fulfill my destiny, I suppose. At least spare me the humiliation of trying to save me. (She sits down, with her handkerchief to her eyes, at the farther end of the table.) VALENTINE (jumping up). Look here-- MRS. CLANDON. Mr. Va-- VALENTINE (recklessly). No: I will speak: I've been silent for nearly thirty seconds. (He goes up to Gloria.) Miss Clandon-- GLORIA (bitterly). Oh, not Miss Clandon: you have found that it is quite safe to call me Gloria. VALENTINE. No, I won't: you'll throw it in my teeth afterwards and accuse me of disrespect. I say it's a heartbreaking falsehood that I don't respect you. It's true that I didn't respect your old pride: why should I? It was nothing but cowardice. I didn't respect your intellect: I've a better one myself: it's a masculine specialty. But when the depths stirred!--when my moment came!--when you made me brave!--ah, then, then, t h e n! GLORIA. Then you respected me, I suppose. VALENTINE. No, I didn't: I adored you. (She rises quickly and turns her back on him.) And you can never take that moment away from me. So now I don't care what happens. (He comes down the room addressing a cheerful explanation to nobody in particular.) I'm perfectly aware that I'm talking nonsense. I can't help it. (To Mrs. Clandon.) I love Gloria; and there's an end of it.