CEDRIC. But how could anything have happened?
FLORA. I don't know, but with that telephone so handy in your mother's study---- All manner of things happen nowadays over the telephone--especially in the middle of the night.
CEDRIC. (_Relieved. Affecting a cheerful irony._) What notions she does get into her head! My dear girl, nothing whatever has happened--so far as I know. Of course nothing _could_. My conversion, as you call it, is due simply and solely to my thinking things over.
CEDRIC. (_Firmly._) Certainly!... Then you really imagined I was capable of such a--you couldn't trust me----
FLORA. It isn't _you_ I couldn't trust. It's the human nature _in_ you that I had my doubts about. It's always so apt to get the better of people, and make them play tricks they'd never dream of by themselves.
CEDRIC. (_Shocked but forgiving._) Fluff!
FLORA. (_Somewhat coldly._) I'm only being man to man.
CEDRIC. Look here, Flora, it's barely twelve hours since that vulgar idiot Klopstock shoved himself into our honeymoon. Barely twelve hours. We were in love with each other up till then, weren't we? (_Silence._) Weren't we?
CEDRIC. Very much? (_Silence._) I say very much?
CEDRIC. Well, if you know as much about human nature as you make out, you know perfectly well that we must still be very much in love with each other. I mean _now, here_! Anyone might think, to hear some of the talk that went on last night, and even to see us at this moment, that we didn't care twopence for each other. But a passion won't be knocked on the head like that. You can't get over it--we're still damnably in love. We've had a row--good! It's been an infernal nuisance--good! I've been an ass, if you like--good! And what then? You're in love with a man who's been an ass--that's all. But you _are_ in love with him. Moreover, he's ceased to be an ass!... Now, Flora, one ass is enough. Are you going to listen to reason or not?
CEDRIC. (_Picking up a piece of crockery and dashing it violently to the ground; then, controlling himself, after a pause, in a low, tense voice._) My mother be blowed!
(_A pause._ MR. _and_ MRS. REACH HASLAM _appear at the house-door. They show surprise at the spectacle of_ FLORA _and_ CEDRIC _with an appealing undecided gesture_.)