MRS. CLANDON (left alone with Gloria). Why did Mr. Valentine go away so suddenly, I wonder? GLORIA (petulantly). I don't know. Yes, I d o know. Let us go and see the dancing. (They go towards the window, and are met by Valentine, who comes in from the garden walking quickly, with his face set and sulky.) VALENTINE (stiffly). Excuse me. I thought the party had quite broken up. GLORIA (nagging). Then why did you come back? VALENTINE. I came back because I am penniless. I can't get out that way without a five shilling ticket. MRS. CLANDON. Has anything annoyed you, Mr. Valentine? GLORIA. Never mind him, mother. This is a fresh insult to me: that is all. MRS. CLANDON (hardly able to realize that Gloria is deliberately provoking an altercation). Gloria! VALENTINE. Mrs. Clandon: have I said anything insulting? Have I done anything insulting? GLORIA. you have implied that my past has been like yours. That is the worst of insults. VALENTINE. I imply nothing of the sort. I declare that my past has been blameless in comparison with yours. MRS. CLANDON (most indignantly). Mr. Valentine! VALENTINE. Well, what am I to think when I learn that Miss Clandon has made exactly the same speeches to other men that she has made to me--when I hear of at least five former lovers, with a tame naval lieutenant thrown in? Oh, it's too bad. MRS. CLANDON. But you surely do not believe that these affairs-- mere jokes of the children's--were serious, Mr. Valentine? VALENTINE. Not to you--not to her, perhaps. But I know what the men felt. (With ludicrously genuine earnestness.) Have you ever thought of the wrecked lives, the marriages contracted in the recklessness of despair, the suicides, the--the--the-- GLORIA (interrupting him contemptuously). Mother: this man is a sentimental idiot. (She sweeps away to the fireplace.) MRS. CLANDON (shocked). Oh, my d e a r e s t Gloria, Mr. Valentine will think that rude. VALENTINE. I am not a sentimental idiot. I am cured of sentiment for ever. (He sits down in dudgeon.) MRS. CLANDON. Mr. Valentine: you must excuse us all. Women have to unlearn the false good manners of their slavery before they acquire the genuine good manners of their freedom. Don't think Gloria vulgar (Gloria turns, astonished): she is not really so. GLORIA. Mother! You apologize for me to h i m! MRS. CLANDON. My dear: you have some of the faults of youth as well as its qualities; and Mr. Valentine seems rather too old fashioned in his ideas about his own sex to like being called an idiot. And now had we not better go and see what Dolly is doing? (She goes towards the window. Valentine rises.) GLORIA. Do you go, mother. I wish to speak to Mr. Valentine alone. MRS. CLANDON (startled into a remonstrance). My dear! (Recollecting herself.) I beg your pardon, Gloria. Certainly, if you wish. (She bows to Valentine and goes out.) VALENTINE. Oh, if your mother were only a widow! She's worth six of you.