OLIVIA.  Very well, George. (But she goes on working.)

GEORGE.  That being so, I don’t see the necessity of going on with them.

OLIVIA.  Well, I must do something with them now I’ve got the material.  I thought perhaps I could sell them when they’re finished—­as we’re so poor.

GEORGE.  What do you mean—­so poor?

OLIVIA.  Well, you said just now that you couldn’t give Dinah an allowance because rents had gone down.

GEORGE (annoyed).  Confound it, Olivia!  Keep to the point!  We’ll talk about Dinah’s affairs directly.  We’re discussing our own affairs at the moment.

OLIVIA.  But what is there to discuss?

GEORGE.  Those ridiculous things.

OLIVIA.  But we’ve finished that.  You’ve said you wouldn’t have them hanging in your house, and I’ve said, “Very well, George.”  Now we can go on to Dinah and Brian.

GEORGE (shouting).  But put these beastly things away.

OLIVIA (rising and gathering up the curtains).  Very well, George. (She puts them away, slowly, gracefully.  There is an uncomfortable silence.  Evidently somebody ought to apologise.)

GEORGE (realising that he is the one).  Er—­look here, Olivia, old girl, you’ve been a jolly good wife to me, and we don’t often have rows, and if I’ve been rude to you about this—­lost my temper a bit perhaps, what?—­I’ll say I’m sorry.  May I have a kiss?

OLIVIA (holding up her face).  George, darling! (He kisses her.) Do you love me?

GEORGE.  You know I do, old girl.

OLIVIA.  As much as Brian loves Dinah?

GEORGE (stiffly).  I’ve said all I want to say about that. (He goes away from her.)

OLIVIA.  Oh, but there must be lots you want to say—­and perhaps don’t like to.  Do tell me, darling.

GEORGE.  What it comes to is this.  I consider that Dinah is too young to choose a husband for herself, and that Strange isn’t the husband I should choose for her.

OLIVIA.  You were calling him Brian yesterday.

GEORGE.  Yesterday I regarded him as a boy, now he wants me to look upon him as a man.

OLIVIA.  He’s twenty-four.

GEORGE.  And Dinah’s nineteen.  Ridiculous!

OLIVIA.  If he’d been a Conservative, and thought that clouds were round, I suppose he’d have seemed older, somehow.

GEORGE.  That’s a different point altogether.  That has nothing to do with his age.

OLIVIA (innocently).  Oh, I thought it had.

GEORGE.  What I am objecting to is these ridiculously early marriages before either party knows its own mind, much less the mind of the other party.  Such marriages invariably lead to unhappiness.

OLIVIA.  Of course, my first marriage wasn’t a happy one.

GEORGE.  As you know, Olivia, I dislike speaking about your first marriage at all, and I had no intention of bringing it up now, but since you mention it—­well, that is a case in point.