The general.  I tell you I cant control myself.  Ive been controlling myself for the last half-hour until I feel like bursting. [He sits down furiously at the end of the table next the study].

Sykes [pointing to the simmering Reginald and the boiling General] Thats just it, Bishop.  Edith is her uncle’s niece.  She cant control herself any more than they can.  And she’s a Bishop’s daughter.  That means that she’s engaged in social work of all sorts:  organizing shop assistants and sweated work girls and all that.  When her blood boils about it (and it boils at least once a week) she doesnt care what she says.

Reginald.  Well:  you knew that when you proposed to her.

Sykes.  Yes; but I didnt know that when we were married I should be legally responsible if she libelled anybody, though all her property is protected against me as if I were the lowest thief and cadger.  This morning somebody sent me Belfort Bax’s essays on Men’s Wrongs; and they have been a perfect eye-opener to me.  Bishop:  I’m not thinking of myself:  I would face anything for Edith.  But my mother and sisters are wholly dependent on my property.  I’d rather have to cut off an inch from my right arm than a hundred a year from my mother’s income.  I owe everything to her care of me.  Edith, in dressing-jacket and petticoat, comes in through the tower, swiftly and determinedly, pamphlet in hand, principles up in arms, more of a bishop than her father, yet as much a gentlewoman as her mother.  She is the typical spoilt child of a clerical household:  almost as terrible a product as the typical spoilt child of a Bohemian household:  that is, all her childish affectations of conscientious scruple and religious impulse have been applauded and deferred to until she has become an ethical snob of the first water.  Her father’s sense of humor and her mother’s placid balance have done something to save her humanity; but her impetuous temper and energetic will, unrestrained by any touch of humor or scepticism, carry everything before them.  Imperious and dogmatic, she takes command of the party at once.

Edith [standing behind Cecil’s chair] Cecil:  I heard your voice.  I must speak to you very particularly.  Papa:  go away.  Go away everybody.

The bishop [crossing to the study door] I think there can be no doubt that Edith wishes us to retire.  Come. [He stands in the doorway, waiting for them to follow].

Sykes.  Thats it, you see.  It’s just this outspokenness that makes my position hard, much as I admire her for it.

Edith.  Do you want me to flatter and be untruthful?

Sykes.  No, not exactly that.

Edith.  Does anybody want me to flatter and be untruthful?

Hotchkiss.  Well, since you ask me, I do.  Surely it’s the very first qualification for tolerable social intercourse.

The general [markedly] I hope you will always tell me the truth, my darling, at all events.