Waste Part 6

AMY O'CONNELL. [_Kindly._] I'm not quite a fool though you think so on a three months' acquaintance. But tell me this ... what education besides marriage does a woman get?

TREBELL. [_His head lifting quickly._] Education....

AMY O'CONNELL. Don't be business-like.

TREBELL. I beg your pardon.

AMY O'CONNELL. Do you think the things you like to have taught in schools are any use to one when one comes to deal with you?

TREBELL. [_After a little scrutiny of her-face._] Well, if marriage is only the means to an end ... what's the end? Not flirtation.

AMY O'CONNELL. [_With an air of self-revelation._] I don't know. To keep one's place in the world, I suppose, one's self-respect and a sense of humour.

TREBELL. Is that difficult?

AMY O'CONNELL. To get what I want, without paying more than it's worth to me....?

TREBELL. Never to be reckless.

AMY O'CONNELL. [_With a side-glance._] One isn't so often tempted.

TREBELL. In fact ... to flirt with life generally. Now, what made your husband marry you?

AMY O'CONNELL. [_Dealing with the impertinence in her own fas.h.i.+on._] What would make you marry me? Don't say: Nothing on earth.

TREBELL. [_Speaking apparently of someone else._] A prolonged fit of idleness might make me marry ... a clever woman. But I've never been idle for more than a week. And I've never met a clever woman ... worth calling a woman.

AMY O'CONNELL. [_Bringing their talk back to herself, and fastidiously._]

Justin has all the natural instincts.

TREBELL. He's Roman Catholic, isn't he?

AMY O'CONNELL. So am I ... by profession.

TREBELL. It's a poor religion unless you really believe in it.

AMY O'CONNELL. [_Appealing to him._] If I were to live at Linaskea and have as many children as G.o.d sent, I should manage to make Justin pretty miserable! And what would be left of me at all I should like to know?

TREBELL. So Justin lives at Linaskea alone?

AMY O'CONNELL. I'm told now there's a pretty housemaid ... [_she shrugs._]

TREBELL. Does he drink too?

AMY O'CONNELL. Oh, no. You'd like Justin, I daresay. He's clever. The thirteenth century's what he knows about. He has done a book on its statutes ... has been doing another.

TREBELL. And after an evening's hard work I find you here ready to flirt with.

AMY O'CONNELL. What have you been working at?

TREBELL. A twentieth century statute perhaps. That's not any concern of yours either.

_She does not follow his thought._

AMY O'CONNELL. No, I prefer you in your unprofessional moments.

TREBELL. Real flattery. I didn't know I had any.

AMY O'CONNELL. That's why you should flirt with me ... Henry ... to cultivate them. I'm afraid you lack imagination.

TREBELL. One must choose something to lack in this life.

AMY O'CONNELL. Not develop your nature to its utmost capacity.

TREBELL. And then?

AMY O'CONNELL. Well, if that's not an end in itself ... [_With a touch of romantic piety._] I suppose there's the hereafter.

TREBELL. [_Grimly material._] What, more developing! I watch people wasting time on themselves with amazement ... I refuse to look forward to wasting eternity.

AMY O'CONNELL. [_Shaking her head._] You are very self-satisfied.

TREBELL. Not more so than any machine that runs smoothly. And I hope not self-conscious.

AMY O'CONNELL. [_Rather attractively treating him as a child._] It would do you good to fall really desperately in love with me ... to give me the power to make you unhappy.

_He suddenly becomes very definite._

TREBELL. At twenty-three I engaged myself to be married to a charming and virtuous fool. I broke it off.

AMY O'CONNELL. Did she mind much?

TREBELL. We both minded. But I had ideals of womanhood that I wouldn't sacrifice to any human being. Then I fell in with a woman who seduced me, and for a whole year led me the life of a French novel ... played about with my emotion as I had tortured that other poor girl's brains. Education you'd call it in the one case as I called it in the other. What a waste of time!

AMY O'CONNELL. And what has become of your ideal?

TREBELL. [_Relapsing to his former mood._] It's no longer a personal matter.

AMY O'CONNELL. [_With coquetry._] You're not interested in my character?

TREBELL. Oh, yes, I am ... up to kissing point.

_She does not shrink, but speaks with just a shade of contempt._

AMY O'CONNELL. You get that far more easily than a woman. That's one of my grudges against men. Why can't women take love-affairs so lightly?

TREBELL. There are reasons. But make a good beginning with this one. Kiss me at once.