If there were more women like you, there would be fewer men like me.
MARGERY [_looks after him, then goes, R. front and looks again_].
He'll go back to his wife; and if she isn't happy, it's her fault.
_Re-enter ARMSTRONG, showing out, C., LADY WARGRAVE and the COLONEL._
This way, my lady. I'll send Margery to you.
More than that, Caroline--it's not respectable.
It shocks me. The institution of marriage is the foundation of society; and whatever tends to cast discredit on that holy "ordnance" saps the moral fibre of the community.
I did say, "ordnance." It was a slip of the tongue.
What do you mean, Caroline? Wasn't I baptized--wasn't I confirmed?
There is another ceremony which, during a somewhat long career, you have systematically avoided.
A mere sin of omission, which even now it is not too late to repair. I am a young man still----
Comparatively. And everything in the world is comparative. What cannot be undone in the past can at least be avoided in the future.
What is the matter with you, Theodore? You have suddenly become quite a moral martinet, and have developed such a severity of aspect that I scarcely know my own brother.
I think I liked you better as you were. At any rate, I was used to you.
How peaceful it is here, Caroline--how sylvan!
It might have been created expressly for the exchange of those sacred confidences which are never more becoming than when shared between a brother and a sister.
Good gracious! you are growing quite sentimental! I have no confidences to make.
There are so many things I mustn't tell Enid!
No, Caroline; I've made a clean breast of it.
Then, Miss Bethune has renounced her opinions?
Oh, no; she's too much of a woman for that.
How can she reconcile them with your enormities?
My peccadilloes? Oh, she doesn't believe them--or she pretends she doesn't--which is the same thing. She says we men exaggerate so; and as for the women, you simply can't believe a word they say!
Upon the whole, she thinks I have been rather badly used.
Way of the world, my dear. My poor old adjutant! went through the Mutiny unscathed, and killed in Rotten Row!
Well, it was quite time that you had a nurse!
[_Rising and going R. front to meet MARGERY._
Caroline's taken it very well. Nothing like courage in these matters--courage! "Nurse" was distinctly nasty; but that's Caroline's way.
