JUNO. Your southern blood. Don't you remember how you told me, 
that night in the saloon when I sang "Farewell and adieu to you 
dear Spanish ladies," that you were by birth a lady of Spain? 
Your splendid Andalusian beauty speaks for itself.

MRS. LUNN. Stuff! I was born in Gibraltar. My father was Captain 
Jenkins. In the artillery.

JUNO [ardently] It is climate and not race that determines the 
temperament. The fiery sun of Spain blazed on your cradle; and it 
rocked to the roar of British cannon.

MRS. LUNN. What eloquence! It reminds me of my husband when he 
was in love before we were married. Are you in love?

JUNO. Yes; and with the same woman.

MRS. LUNN. Well, of course, I didn't suppose you were in love 
with two women.

JUNO. I don't think you quite understand. I meant that I am in 
love with you.

MRS. LUNN [relapsing into deepest boredom] Oh, that! Men do fall 
in love with me. They all seem to think me a creature with 
volcanic passions: I'm sure I don't know why; for all the 
volcanic women I know are plain little creatures with sandy hair. 
I don't consider human volcanoes respectable. And I'm so tired of 
the subject! Our house is always full of women who are in love 
with my husband and men who are in love with me. We encourage it 
because it's pleasant to have company.

JUNO. And is your husband as insensible as yourself? 

MRS. LUNN. Oh, Gregory's not insensible: very far from it; but I 
am the only woman in the world for him. 

JUNO. But you? Are you really as insensible as you say you are?

MRS. LUNN. I never said anything of the kind. I'm not at all 
insensible by nature; but (I don't know whether you've noticed 
it) I am what people call rather a fine figure of a woman.

JUNO [passionately] Noticed it! Oh, Mrs. Lunn! Have I been able 
to notice anything else since we met?

MRS. LUNN. There you go, like all the rest of them! I ask you, 
how do you expect a woman to keep up what you call her 
sensibility when this sort of thing has happened to her about 
three times a week ever since she was seventeen? It used to upset 
me and terrify me at first. Then I got rather a taste for it. It 
came to a climax with Gregory: that was why I married him. Then 
it became a mild lark, hardly worth the trouble. After that I 
found it valuable once or twice as a spinal tonic when I was run 
down; but now it's an unmitigated bore. I don't mind your 
declaration: I daresay it gives you a certain pleasure to make 
it. I quite understand that you adore me; but (if you don't mind) 
I'd rather you didn't keep on saying so.

JUNO. Is there then no hope for me?

MRS. LUNN. Oh, yes. Gregory has an idea that married women keep 
lists of the men they'll marry if they become widows. I'll put 
your name down, if that will satisfy you.

JUNO. Is the list a long one?

MRS. LUNN. Do you mean the real list? Not the one I show to 
Gregory: there are hundreds of names on that; but the little 
private list that he'd better not see?

JUNO. Oh, will you really put me on that? Say you will.

MRS. LUNN. Well, perhaps I will. [He kisses her hand]. Now don't 
begin abusing the privilege. 

JUNO. May I call you by your Christian name?

MRS. LUNN. No: it's too long. You can't go about calling a woman 
Seraphita.

JUNO [ecstatically] Seraphita!

MRS. LUNN. I used to be called Sally at home; but when I married 
a man named Lunn, of course that became ridiculous. That's my one 
little pet joke. Call me Mrs. Lunn for short. And change the 
subject, or I shall go to sleep.

JUNO. I can't change the subject. For me there is no other 
subject. Why else have you put me on your list?

MRS. LUNN. Because you're a solicitor. Gregory's a solicitor. I'm 
accustomed to my husband being a solicitor and telling me things 
he oughtn't to tell anybody.

JUNO [ruefully] Is that all? Oh, I can't believe that the voice 
of love has ever thoroughly awakened you. 

MRS. LUNN. No: it sends me to sleep. [Juno appeals against this 
by an amorous demonstration]. It's no use, Mr. Juno: I'm 
hopelessly respectable: the Jenkinses always were. Don't you 
realize that unless most women were like that, the world couldn't 
go on as it does?

JUNO [darkly] You think it goes on respectably; but I can tell 
you as a solicitor--

MRS. LUNN. Stuff! of course all the disreputable people who get 
into trouble go to you, just as all the sick people go to the 
doctors; but most people never go to a solicitor.

JUNO [rising, with a growing sense of injury] Look here, Mrs. 
Lunn: do you think a man's heart is a potato? or a turnip? or a 
ball of knitting wool? that you can throw it away like this?

MRS. LUNN. I don't throw away balls of knitting wool. A man's 
heart seems to me much like a sponge: it sops up dirty water as 
well as clean.

JUNO. I have never been treated like this in my life. Here am I, 
a married man, with a most attractive wife: a wife I adore, and 
who adores me, and has never as much as looked at any other man 
since we were married. I come and throw all this at your feet. 
I! I, a solicitor! braving the risk of your husband putting me 
into the divorce court and making me a beggar and an outcast! I 
do this for your sake. And you go on as if I were making no 
sacrifice: as if I had told you it's a fine evening, or asked you 
to have a cup of tea. It's not human. It's not right. Love has 
its rights as well as respectability [he sits down again, aloof 
and sulky].

MRS. LUNN. Nonsense! Here, here's a flower [she gives him one]. 
Go and dream over it until you feel hungry. Nothing brings people 
to their senses like hunger.

JUNO [contemplating the flower without rapture] What good's this?

MRS. LUNN [snatching it from him] Oh! you don't love me a bit.

JUNO. Yes I do. Or at least I did. But I'm an Englishman; and I 
think you ought to respect the conventions of English life.

MRS. LUNN. But I am respecting them; and you're not.

JUNO. Pardon me. I may be doing wrong; but I'm doing it in a 
proper and customary manner. You may be doing right; but you're 
doing it in an unusual and questionable manner. I am not prepared 
to put up with that. I can stand being badly treated: I'm no 
baby, and can take care of myself with anybody. And of course I 
can stand being well treated. But the thing I can't stand is 
being unexpectedly treated, It's outside my scheme of life. So 
come now! you've got to behave naturally and straightforwardly 
with me. You can leave husband and child, home, friends, and 
country, for my sake, and come with me to some southern isle--or 
say South America--where we can be all in all to one another. Or 
you can tell your husband and let him jolly well punch my head if 
he can. But I'm damned if I'm going to stand any eccentricity. 
It's not respectable. 

GREGORY [coming in from the terrace and advancing with dignity to 
his wife's end of the chesterfield]. Will you have the goodness, 
sir, in addressing this lady, to keep your temper and refrain 
from using profane language?

MRS. LUNN [rising, delighted] Gregory! Darling [she enfolds him 
in a copious embrace]!

JUNO [rising] You make love to another man to my face!

MRS. LUNN. Why, he's my husband.

JUNO. That takes away the last rag of excuse for such conduct. A 
nice world it would be if married people were to carry on their 
endearments before everybody!

GREGORY. This is ridiculous. What the devil business is it of 
yours what passes between my wife and myself? You're not her 
husband, are you?

JUNO. Not at present; but I'm on the list. I'm her prospective 
husband: you're only her actual one. I'm the anticipation: you're 
the disappointment.

MRS. LUNN. Oh, my Gregory is not a disappointment. [Fondly] Are 
you, dear?

GREGORY. You just wait, my pet. I'll settle this chap for you. 
[He disengages himself from her embrace, and faces Juno. She sits 
down placidly]. You call me a disappointment, do you? Well, I 
suppose every husband's a disappointment. What about yourself? 
Don't try to look like an unmarried man. I happen to know the 
lady you disappointed. I travelled in the same ship with her; 
and--

JUNO. And you fell in love with her. 

GREGORY [taken aback] Who told you that?

JUNO. Aha! you confess it. Well, if you want to know, nobody told 
me. Everybody falls in love with my wife.

GREGORY. And do you fall in love with everybody's wife?

JUNO. Certainly not. Only with yours.

MRS. LUNN. But what's the good of saying that, Mr. Juno? I'm 
married to him; and there's an end of it. 

JUNO. Not at all. You can get a divorce.

MRS. LUNN. What for?

JUNO. For his misconduct with my wife.

GREGORY [deeply indignant] How dare you, sir, asperse the 
character of that sweet lady? a lady whom I have taken under my 
protection.

JUNO. Protection!

MRS. JUNO [returning hastily] Really you must be more careful 
what you say about me, Mr. Lunn.

JUNO. My precious! [He embraces her]. Pardon this betrayal of my 
feeling; but I've not seen my wife for several weeks; and she is 
very dear to me.

GREGORY. I call this cheek. Who is making love to his own wife 
before people now, pray?

MRS. LUNN. Won't you introduce me to your wife, Mr. Juno?

MRS. JUNO. How do you do? [They shake hands; and Mrs. Juno sits 
down beside Mrs. Lunn, on her left]. 

MRS. LUNN. I'm so glad to find you do credit to Gregory's taste. 
I'm naturally rather particular about the women he falls in love 
with.

JUNO [sternly] This is no way to take your husband's 
unfaithfulness. [To Lunn] You ought to teach your wife better. 
Where's her feelings? It's scandalous. 

GREGORY. What about your own conduct, pray?

JUNO. I don't defend it; and there's an end of the matter.

GREGORY. Well, upon my soul! What difference does your not 
defending it make?

JUNO. A fundamental difference. To serious people I may appear 
wicked. I don't defend myself: I am wicked, though not bad at 
heart. To thoughtless people I may even appear comic. Well, laugh 
at me: I have given myself away. But Mrs. Lunn seems to have no 
opinion at all about me. She doesn't seem to know whether I'm 
wicked or comic. She doesn't seem to care. She has no more sense. 
I say it's not right. I repeat, I have sinned; and I'm prepared 
to suffer.

MRS. JUNO. Have you really sinned, Tops?

MRS. LUNN [blandly] I don't remember your sinning. I have a 
shocking bad memory for trifles; but I think I should remember 
that--if you mean me.

JUNO [raging] Trifles! I have fallen in love with a monster.

GREGORY. Don't you dare call my wife a monster.

MRS. JUNO [rising quickly and coming between them]. Please don't 
lose your temper, Mr. Lunn: I won't have my Tops bullied.

GREGORY. Well, then, let him not brag about sinning with my wife. 
[He turns impulsively to his wife; makes her rise; and takes her 
proudly on his arm]. What pretension has he to any such honor?

JUNO. I sinned in intention. [Mrs. Juno abandons him and resumes 
her seat, chilled]. I'm as guilty as if I had actually sinned. 
And I insist on being treated as a sinner, and not walked over as 
if I'd done nothing, by your wife or any other man.

MRS. LUNN. Tush! [She sits down again contemptuously].

JUNO [furious] I won't be belittled.

MRS. LUNN [to Mrs. Juno] I hope you'll come and stay with us now 
that you and Gregory are such friends, Mrs. Juno.

JUNO. This insane magnanimity--

MRS. LUNN. Don't you think you've said enough, Mr. Juno? This is 
a matter for two women to settle. Won't you take a stroll on the 
beach with my Gregory while we talk it over. Gregory is a 
splendid listener.

JUNO. I don't think any good can come of a conversation between 
Mr. Lunn and myself. We can hardly be expected to improve one 
another's morals. [He passes behind the chesterfield to Mrs. 
Lunn's end; seizes a chair; deliberately pushes it between 
Gregory and Mrs. Lunn; and sits down with folded arms, resolved 
not to budge].

GREGORY. Oh! Indeed! Oh, all right. If you come to that--[he 
crosses to Mrs. Juno; plants a chair by her side; and sits down 
with equal determination].

JUNO. Now we are both equally guilty. 

GREGORY. Pardon me. I'm not guilty. 

JUNO. In intention. Don't quibble. You were guilty in intention, 
as I was.

GREGORY. No. I should rather describe myself guilty in fact, but 
not in intention.

JUNO            { rising and     }  What!
MRS. JUNO       { exclaiming     }  No, really--
MRS. LUNN       { simultaneously }  Gregory!

GREGORY. Yes: I maintain that I am responsible for my intentions 
only, and not for reflex actions over which I have no control. 
[Mrs. Juno sits down, ashamed]. I promised my mother that I would 
never tell a lie, and that I would never make love to a married 
woman. I never have told a lie--

MRS. LUNN [remonstrating] Gregory! [She sits down again].

GREGORY. I say never. On many occasions I have resorted to 
prevarication; but on great occasions I have always told the 
truth. I regard this as a great occasion; and I won't be 
intimidated into breaking my promise. I solemnly declare that I 
did not know until this evening that Mrs. Juno was married. She 
will bear me out when I say that from that moment my intentions 
were strictly and resolutely honorable; though my conduct, which 
I could not control and am therefore not responsible for, was 
disgraceful--or would have been had this gentleman not walked in 
and begun making love to my wife under my very nose.

JUNO [flinging himself back into his chair] Well, I like this!

MRS. LUNN. Really, darling, there's no use in the pot calling 
the kettle black.

GREGORY. When you say darling, may I ask which of us you are 
addressing?

MRS. LUNN. I really don't know. I'm getting hopelessly confused.

JUNO. Why don't you let my wife say something? I don't think she 
ought to be thrust into the background like this.

MRS. LUNN. I'm sorry, I'm sure. Please excuse me, dear.

MRS. JUNO [thoughtfully] I don't know what to say. I must think 
over it. I have always been rather severe on this sort of thing; 
but when it came to the point I didn't behave as I thought I 
should behave. I didn't intend to be wicked; but somehow or 
other, Nature, or whatever you choose to call it, didn't take 
much notice of my intentions. [Gregory instinctively seeks her 
hand and presses it]. And I really did think, Tops, that I was 
the only woman in the world for you.

JUNO [cheerfully] Oh, that's all right, my precious. Mrs. Lunn 
thought she was the only woman in the world for him.

GREGORY [reflectively] So she is, in a sort of a way. 

JUNO [flaring up] And so is my wife. Don't you set up to be a 
better husband than I am; for you're not. I've owned I'm wrong. 
You haven't.

MRS. LUNN. Are you sorry, Gregory? 

GREGORY [perplexed] Sorry?

MRS. LUNN. Yes, sorry. I think it's time for you to say you're 
sorry, and to make friends with Mr. Juno before we all dine 
together.

GREGORY. Seraphita: I promised my mother--

MRS. JUNO [involuntarily] Oh, bother your mother! [Recovering 
herself] I beg your pardon.

GREGORY. A promise is a promise. I can't tell a deliberate lie. I 
know I ought to be sorry; but the flat fact is that I'm not 
sorry. I find that in this business, somehow or other, there is a 
disastrous separation between  my moral principles and my 
conduct. 

JUNO. There's nothing disastrous about it. It doesn't matter 
about your principles if your conduct is all right.

GREGORY. Bosh! It doesn't matter about your principles if your 
conduct is all right.

JUNO. But your conduct isn't all right; and my principles are.

GREGORY. What's the good of your principles being right if they 
won't work?

JUNO. They WILL work, sir, if you exercise self-sacrifice.

GREGORY. Oh yes: if, if, if. You know jolly well that 
self-sacrifice doesn't work either when you really want a thing. 
How much have you sacrificed yourself, pray?

MRS. LUNN. Oh, a great deal, Gregory. Don't be rude. Mr. Juno is 
a very nice man: he has been most attentive to me on the voyage.

GREGORY. And Mrs. Juno's a very nice woman. She oughtn't to be; 
but she is.

JUNO. Why oughtn't she to be a nice woman, pray? 

GREGORY. I mean she oughtn't to be nice to me. And you oughtn't 
to be nice to my wife. And your wife oughtn't to like me. And my 
wife oughtn't to like you. And if they do, they oughtn't to go on 
liking us. And I oughtn't to like your wife; and you oughtn't to 
like mine; and if we do we oughtn't to go on liking them. But we 
do, all of us. We oughtn't; but we do.

JUNO. But, my dear boy, if we admit we are in the wrong where's 
the harm of it? We're not perfect; but as long as we keep the 
ideal before us--

GREGORY. How?

JUNO. By admitting we were wrong.

MRS. LUNN [springing up, out of patience, and pacing round the 
lounge intolerantly] Well, really, I must have my dinner. These 
two men, with their morality, and their promises to their 
mothers, and their admissions that they were wrong, and their 
sinning and suffering, and their going on at one another as if it 
meant anything, or as if it mattered, are getting on my nerves. 
[Stooping over the back of the chesterfield to address Mrs. Juno] 
If you will be so very good, my dear, as to take my sentimental 
husband off my hands occasionally, I shall be more than obliged 
to you: I'm sure you can stand more male sentimentality than I 
can. [Sweeping away to the fireplace] I, on my part, will do my 
best to amuse your excellent husband when you find him tiresome.

JUNO. I call this polyandry.

MRS. LUNN. I wish you wouldn't call innocent things by offensive 
names, Mr. Juno. What do you call your own conduct?

JUNO [rising] I tell you I have admitted--

GREGORY    {          } What's the good of keeping on at that?
MRS. JUNO  { together } Oh, not that again, please.
MRS. LUNN  {          } Tops: I'll scream if you say that again.

JUNO. Oh, well, if you won't listen to me--! [He sits down 
again].

MRS. JUNO. What is the position now exactly? [Mrs. Lunn shrugs 
her shoulders and gives up the conundrum. Gregory looks at Juno. 
Juno turns away his head huffily]. I mean, what are we going to 
do?

MRS. LUNN. What would you advise, Mr. Juno? 

JUNO. I should advise you to divorce your husband. 

MRS. LUNN. Do you want me to drag your wife into court and 
disgrace her?

JUNO. No: I forgot that. Excuse me; but for the moment I thought 
I was married to you.

GREGORY. I think we had better let bygones be bygones. [To Mrs. 
Juno, very tenderly] You will forgive me, won't you? Why should 
you let a moment's forgetfulness embitter all our future life?

MRS. JUNO. But it's Mrs. Lunn who has to forgive you.

GREGORY. Oh, dash it, I forgot. This is getting ridiculous.

MRS. LUNN. I'm getting hungry.

MRS. JUNO. Do you really mind, Mrs. Lunn?

MRS. LUNN. My dear Mrs. Juno, Gregory is one of those terribly 
uxorious men who ought to have ten wives. If any really nice 
woman will take him off my hands for a day or two occasionally, I 
shall be greatly obliged to her.

GREGORY. Seraphita: you cut me to the soul [he weeps].

MRs. LUNN. Serve you right! You'd think it quite proper if it cut 
me to the soul.

MRS. JUNO. Am I to take Sibthorpe off your hands too, Mrs. Lunn?

JUNO [rising] Do you suppose I'll allow this?

MRS. JUNO. You've admitted that you've done wrong, Tops. What's 
the use of your allowing or not allowing after that?

JUNO. I do not admit that I have done wrong. I admit that what I 
did was wrong.

GREGORY. Can you explain the distinction?

JUNO. It's quite plain to anyone but an imbecile. If you tell me 
I've done something wrong you insult me. But if you say that 
something that I did is wrong you simply raise a question of 
morals. I tell you flatly if you say I did anything wrong you 
will have to fight me. In fact I think we ought to fight anyhow. 
I don't particularly want to; but I feel that England expects us 
to.

GREGORY. I won't fight. If you beat me my wife would share my 
humiliation. If I beat you, she would sympathize with you and 
loathe me for my brutality.

MRS. LUNN. Not to mention that as we are human beings and not 
reindeer or barndoor fowl, if two men presumed to fight for us we 
couldn't decently ever speak to either of them again.

GREGORY. Besides, neither of us could beat the other, as we 
neither of us know how to fight. We should only blacken each 
other's eyes and make fools of ourselves.

JUNO. I don't admit that. Every Englishman can use his fists.

GREGORY. You're an Englishman. Can you use yours? 

JUNO. I presume so: I never tried.

MRS. JUNO. You never told me you couldn't fight, Tops. I thought 
you were an accomplished boxer.

JUNO. My precious: I never gave you any ground for such a belief.

MRS. JUNO. You always talked as if it were a matter of course. 
You spoke with the greatest contempt of men who didn't kick other 
men downstairs.

JUNO. Well, I can't kick Mr. Lunn downstairs. We're on the ground 
floor.

MRS. JUNO. You could throw him into the harbor.

GREGORY. Do you want me to be thrown into the harbor?

MRS. JUNO. No: I only want to show Tops that he's making a 
ghastly fool of himself.

GREGORY [rising and prowling disgustedly between the chesterfield 
and the windows] We're all making fools of ourselves.

JUNO [following him] Well, if we're not to fight, I must insist 
at least on your never speaking to my wife again. 

GREGORY. Does my speaking to your wife do you any harm?

JUNO. No. But it's the proper course to take. [Emphatically]. We 
MUST behave with some sort of decency.

MRS. LUNN. And are you never going to speak to me again, Mr. 
Juno?

JUNO. I'm prepared to promise never to do so. I think your 
husband has a right to demand that. Then if I speak to you after, 
it will not be his fault. It will be a breach of my promise; and 
I shall not attempt to defend my conduct.

GREGORY [facing him] I shall talk to your wife as often as she'll 
let me.

MRS. JUNO. I have no objection to your speaking to me, Mr. Lunn.

JUNO. Then I shall take steps. 

GREGORY. What steps?

Juno. Steps. Measures. Proceedings. What steps as may seem 
advisable.

MRS. LUNN [to Mrs. Juno] Can your husband afford a scandal, Mrs. 
Juno?

MRS. JUNO. No.

MRS. LUNN. Neither can mine.

GREGORY. Mrs. Juno: I'm very sorry I let you in for all this. I 
don't know how it is that we contrive to make feelings like ours, 
which seems to me to be beautiful and sacred feelings, and which 
lead to such interesting and exciting adventures, end in vulgar 
squabbles and degrading scenes.

JUNO. I decline to admit that my conduct has been vulgar or 
degrading.

GREGORY. I promised--

JUNO. Look here, old chap: I don't say a word against your 
mother; and I'm sorry she's dead; but really, you know, most 
women are mothers; and they all die some time or other; yet that 
doesn't make them infallible authorities on morals, does it?

GREGORY. I was about to say so myself. Let me add that if you do 
things merely because you think some other fool expects you to do 
them, and he expects you to do them because he thinks you expect 
him to expect you to do them, it will end in everybody doing what 
nobody wants to do, which is in my opinion a silly state of 
things.

JUNO. Lunn: I love your wife; and that's all about it.

GREGORY. Juno: I love yours. What then?

JUNO. Clearly she must never see you again. 

MRS. JUNO. Why not?

JUNO. Why not! My love: I'm surprised at you.

MRS. JUNO. Am I to speak only to men who dislike me? 

JUNO. Yes: I think that is, properly speaking, a married woman's 
duty.

MRS. JUNO. Then I won't do it: that's flat. I like to be liked. I 
like to be loved. I want everyone round me to love me. I don't 
want to meet or speak to anyone who doesn't like me.

JUNO. But, my precious, this is the most horrible immorality.

MRS. LUNN. I don't intend to give up meeting you, Mr. Juno. You 
amuse me very much. I don't like being loved: it bores me. But I 
do like to be amused.

JUNO. I hope we shall meet very often. But I hope also we shall 
not defend our conduct.

MRS. JUNO [rising] This is unendurable. We've all been flirting. 
Need we go on footling about it?

JUNO [huffily] I don't know what you call footling--

MRS. JUNO [cutting him short] You do. You're footling. Mr. Lunn 
is footling. Can't we admit that we're human and have done with 
it?

JUNO. I have admitted it all along. I--

MRS. JUNO [almost screaming] Then stop footling. 

The dinner gong sounds.

MRS. LUNN [rising] Thank heaven! Let's go in to dinner. Gregory: 
take in Mrs. Juno.

GREGORY. But surely I ought to take in our guest, and not my own 
wife.

MRS. LUNN. Well, Mrs. Juno is not your wife, is she?

GREGORY. Oh, of course: I beg your pardon. I'm hopelessly 
confused. [He offers his arm to Mrs. Juno, rather 
apprehensively].

MRS. JUNO. You seem quite afraid of me [she takes his arm].

GREGORY. I am. I simply adore you. [They go out together; and as 
they pass through the door he turns and says in a ringing voice 
to the other couple] I have said to Mrs. Juno that I simply adore 
her. [He takes her out defiantly].

MRS. LUNN [calling after him] Yes, dear. She's a darling. [To 
Juno] Now, Sibthorpe.

JUNO [giving her his arm gallantly] You have called me 
Sibthorpe! Thank you. I think Lunn's conduct fully justifies me 
in allowing you to do it.

MRS. LUNN. Yes: I think you may let yourself go now. 

JUNO. Seraphita: I worship you beyond expression. 

MRS. LUNN. Sibthorpe: you amuse me beyond description. Come. 
[They go in to dinner together].