KNOX.  Let her alone, Gilbey. [Gilbey sits down, but mutinously].

MRS KNOX.  Well, you gave me all you could, Jo; and if it wasnt what I wanted, that wasnt your fault.  But I’d rather have you as you were than since you took to whisky and soda.

KNOX.  I dont want any whisky and soda.  I’ll take the pledge if you like.

MRS KNOX.  No:  you shall have your beer because you like it.  The whisky was only brag.  And if you and me are to remain friends, Mr Gilbey, youll get up to-morrow morning at seven.

GILBEY. [defiantly] Damme if I will!  There!

MRS KNOX. [with gentle pity] How do you know, Mr Gilbey, what youll do to-morrow morning?

GILBEY.  Why shouldnt I know?  Are we children not to be let do what we like, and our own sons and daughters kicking their heels all over the place? [To Knox] I was never one to interfere between man and wife, Knox; but if Maria started ordering me about like that—­

MRS GILBEY.  Now dont be naughty, Rob.  You know you mustnt set yourself up against religion?

GILBEY.  Whos setting himself up against religion?

MRS KNOX.  It doesnt matter whether you set yourself up against it or not, Mr. Gilbey.  If it sets itself up against you, youll have to go the appointed way:  it’s no use quarrelling about it with me that am as great a sinner as yourself.

GILBEY.  Oh, indeed!  And who told you I was a sinner?

MRS GILBEY.  Now, Rob, you know we are all sinners.  What else is religion?

GILBEY.  I say nothing against religion.  I suppose were all sinners, in a manner of speaking; but I dont like to have it thrown at me as if I’d really done anything.

MRS GILBEY.  Mrs Knox is speaking for your good, Rob.

GILBEY.  Well, I dont like to be spoken to for my good.  Would anybody like it?

MRS KNOX.  Dont take offence where none is meant, Mr Gilbey.  Talk about something else.  No good ever comes of arguing about such things among the like of us.

KNOX.  The like of us!  Are you throwing it in our teeth that your people were in the wholesale and thought Knox and Gilbey wasnt good enough for you?

MRS KNOX.  No, Jo:  you know I’m not.  What better were my people than yours, for all their pride?  But Ive noticed it all my life:  we’re ignorant.  We dont really know whats right and whats wrong.  We’re all right as long as things go on the way they always did.  We bring our children up just as we were brought up; and we go to church or chapel just as our parents did; and we say what everybody says; and it goes on all right until something out of the way happens:  theres a family quarrel, or one of the children goes wrong, or a father takes to drink, or an aunt goes mad, or one of us finds ourselves doing something we never thought we’d want to do.  And then you know what happens:  complaints and quarrels and huff and offence and bad language and bad temper and regular bewilderment as if Satan possessed us all.  We find out then that with all our respectability and piety, weve no real religion and no way of telling right from wrong.  Weve nothing but our habits; and when theyre upset, where are we?  Just like Peter in the storm trying to walk on the water and finding he couldnt.