MRS. CLANDON (emphatically). Mr. Valentine: you are a most dangerous man. Gloria: come here. (Gloria, wondering a little at the command, obeys, and stands, with drooping head, on her mother's right hand, Valentine being on the opposite side. Mrs. Clandon then begins, with intense scorn.) Ask this man whom you have inspired and made brave, how many women have inspired him before (Gloria looks up suddenly with a flash of jealous anger and amazement); how many times he has laid the trap in which he has caught you; how often he has baited it with the same speeches; how much practice it has taken to make him perfect in his chosen part in life as the Duellist of Sex. VALENTINE. This isn't fair. You're abusing my confidence, Mrs. Clandon. MRS. CLANDON. Ask him, Gloria. GLORIA (in a flush of rage, going over to him with her fists clenched). Is that true? VALENTINE. Don't be angry-- GLORIA (interrupting him implacably). Is it true? Did you ever say that before? Did you ever feel that before--for another woman? VALENTINE (bluntly). Yes. (Gloria raises her clenched hands.) MRS. CLANDON (horrified, springing to her side and catching her uplifted arm). Gloria!! My dear! You're forgetting yourself. (Gloria, with a deep expiration, slowly relaxes her threatening attitude.) VALENTINE. Remember: a man's power of love and admiration is like any other of his powers: he has to throw it away many times before he learns what is really worthy of it. MRS. CLANDON. Another of the old speeches, Gloria. Take care. VALENTINE (remonstrating). Oh! GLORIA (to Mrs. Clandon, with contemptuous self-possession). Do you think I need to be warned now? (To Valentine.) You have tried to make me love you. VALENTINE. I have. GLORIA. Well, you have succeeded in making me hate you-- passionately. VALENTINE (philosophically). It's surprising how little difference there is between the two. (Gloria turns indignantly away from him. He continues, to Mrs. Clandon) I know men whose wives love them; and they go on exactly like that. MRS. CLANDON. Excuse me, Mr. Valentine; but had you not better go? GLORIA. You need not send him away on my account, mother. He is nothing to me now; and he will amuse Dolly and Phil. (She sits down with slighting indifference, at the end of the table nearest the window.) VALENTINE (gaily). Of course: that's the sensible way of looking at it. Come, Mrs. Clandon: you can't quarrel with a mere butterfly like me. MRS. CLANDON. I very greatly mistrust you, Mr. Valentine. But I do not like to think that your unfortunate levity of disposition is mere shamelessness and worthlessness;-- GLORIA (to herself, but aloud). It is shameless; and it is worthless. MRS. CLANDON. --so perhaps we had better send for Phil and Dolly and allow you to end your visit in the ordinary way. VALENTINE (as if she had paid him the highest compliment). You overwhelm me, Mrs. Clandon. Thank you. (The waiter enters.) WAITER. Mr. McComas, ma'am.