The general [gasping] Do you mean to tell me that you did it in cold blood? simply to get rid of your wife?

Reginald.  No, I didn’t:  I did it to get her rid of me.  What would you do if you were fool enough to marry a woman thirty years younger than yourself, and then found that she didnt care for you, and was in love with a young fellow with a face like a mushroom.

Leo.  He has not. [Bursting into tears] And you are most unkind to say I didnt care for you.  Nobody could have been fonder of you.

Reginald.  A nice way of shewing your fondness!  I had to go out and dig that flower bed all over with my own hands to soften it.  I had to pick all the stones out of it.  And then she complained that I hadnt done it properly, because she got a worm down her neck.  I had to go to Brighton with a poor creature who took a fancy to me on the way down, and got conscientious scruples about committing perjury after dinner.  I had to put her down in the hotel book as Mrs Reginald Bridgenorth:  Leo’s name!  Do you know what that feels like to a decent man?  Do you know what a decent man feels about his wife’s name?  How would you like to go into a hotel before all the waiters and people with—­with that on your arm?  Not that it was the poor girl’s fault, of course; only she started crying because I couldnt stand her touching me; and now she keeps writing to me.  And then I’m held up in the public court for cruelty and adultery, and turned away from Edith’s wedding by Alice, and lectured by you! a bachelor, and a precious green one at that.  What do you know about it?

The general.  Am I to understand that the whole case was one of collusion?

Reginald.  Of course it was.  Half the cases are collusions:  what are people to do? [The General, passing his hand dazedly over his bewildered brow, sinks into the railed chair].  And what do you take me for, that you should have the cheek to pretend to believe all that rot about my knocking Leo about and leaving her for—­for a—­a—­ Ugh! you should have seen her.

The general.  This is perfectly astonishing to me.  Why did you do it?  Why did Leo allow it?

Reginald.  Youd better ask her.

Leo [still in tears] I’m sure I never thought it would be so horrid for Rejjy.  I offered honorably to do it myself, and let him divorce me; but he wouldnt.  And he said himself that it was the only way to do it—­that it was the law that he should do it that way.  I never saw that hateful creature until that day in Court.  If he had only shewn her to me before, I should never have allowed it.

Mrs Bridgenorth.  You did all this for Leo’s sake, Rejjy?

Reginald [with an unbearable sense of injury] I shouldnt mind a bit if it were for Leo’s sake.  But to have to do it to make room for that mushroom-faced serpent—!