HYPATIA. Dont answer him, Joey: it wont last. Lord Summerhays, I'm sorry about Bentley; but Joey's the only man for me.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. It may--
HYPATIA. Please dont say it may break your poor boy's heart. It's much more likely to break yours.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. Oh!
TARLETON. [springing to his feet] Leave the room. Do you hear:
leave the room.
PERCIVAL. Arnt we getting a little cross? Dont be angry, Mr Tarleton. Read Marcus Aurelius.
TARLETON. Dont you dare make fun of me. Take your aeroplane out of my vinery and yourself out of my house.
PERCIVAL. [rising, to Hypatia] I'm afraid I shall have to dine at the Beacon, Patsy.
HYPATIA. [rising] Do. I dine with you.
TARLETON. Did you hear me tell you to leave the room?
HYPATIA. I did. [To Percival] You see what living with one's parents means, Joey. It means living in a house where you can be ordered to leave the room. Ive got to obey: it's his house, not mine.
TARLETON. Who pays for it? Go and support yourself as I did if you want to be independent.
HYPATIA. I wanted to and you wouldnt let me. How can I support myself when I'm a prisoner?
TARLETON. Hold your tongue.
HYPATIA. Keep your temper.
PERCIVAL. [coming between them] Lord Summerhays: youll join me, I'm sure, in pointing out to both father and daughter that they have now reached that very common stage in family life at which anything but a blow would be an anti-climax. Do you seriously want to beat Patsy, Mr Tarleton?
TARLETON. Yes. I want to thrash the life out of her. If she doesnt get out of my reach, I'll do it. [He sits down and grasps the writing table to restrain himself].
HYPATIA. [coolly going to him and leaning with her breast on his writhing shoulders] Oh, if you want to beat me just to relieve your feelings--just really and truly for the fun of it and the satisfaction of it, beat away. I dont grudge you that.
TARLETON. [almost in hysterics] I used to think that this sort of thing went on in other families but that it never could happen in ours. And now-- [He is broken with emotion, and continues lamentably] I cant say the right thing. I cant do the right thing.
I dont know what is the right thing. I'm beaten; and she knows it.
Summerhays: tell me what to do.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. When my council in Jinghiskahn reached the point of coming to blows, I used to adjourn the sitting. Let us postpone the discussion. Wait until Monday: we shall have Sunday to quiet down in. Believe me, I'm not making fun of you; but I think theres something in this young gentleman's advice. Read something.
TARLETON. I'll read King Lear.
HYPATIA. Dont. I'm very sorry, dear.
TARLETON. Youre not. Youre laughing at me. Serve me right! Parents and children! No man should know his own child. No child should know its own father. Let the family be rooted out of civilization! Let the human race be brought up in institutions!
HYPATIA. Oh yes. How jolly! You and I might be friends then; and Joey could stay to dinner.
TARLETON. Let him stay to dinner. Let him stay to breakfast. Let him spend his life here. Dont you say I drove him out. Dont you say I drove you out.
PERCIVAL. I really have no right to inflict myself on you. Dropping in as I did--TARLETON. Out of the sky. Ha! Dropping in. The new sport of aviation. You just see a nice house; drop in; scoop up the man's daughter; and off with you again.
Bentley comes back, with his shoulders hanging as if he too had been exercised to the last pitch of fatigue. He is very sad. They stare at him as he gropes to Percival's chair.
BENTLEY. I'm sorry for making a fool of myself. I beg your pardon.
Hypatia: I'm awfully sorry; but Ive made up my mind that I'll never marry. [He sits down in deep depression].
HYPATIA. [running to him] How nice of you, Bentley! Of course you guessed I wanted to marry Joey. What did the Polish lady do to you?
BENTLEY. [turning his head away] I'd rather not speak of her, if you dont mind.
HYPATIA. Youve fallen in love with her. [She laughs].
BENTLEY. It's beastly of you to laugh.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. Youre not the first to fall today under the lash of that young lady's terrible derision, Bentley.
Lina, her cap on, and her goggles in her hand, comes impetuously through the inner door.
LINA. [on the steps] Mr Percival: can we get that aeroplane started again? [She comes down and runs to the pavilion door]. Imust get out of this into the air: right up into the blue.
PERCIVAL. Impossible. The frame's twisted. The petrol has given out: thats what brought us down. And how can we get a clear run to start with among these woods?
LINA. [swooping back through the middle of the pavilion] We can straighten the frame. We can buy petrol at the Beacon. With a few laborers we can get her out on to the Portsmouth Road and start her along that.
TARLETON. [rising] But why do you want to leave us, Miss Szcz?
LINA. Old pal: this is a stuffy house. You seem to think of nothing but making love. All the conversation here is about love-making. All the pictures are about love-making. The eyes of all of you are sheep's eyes. You are steeped in it, soaked in it: the very texts on the walls of your bedrooms are the ones about love. It is disgusting.
It is not healthy. Your women are kept idle and dressed up for no other purpose than to be made love to. I have not been here an hour;and already everybody makes love to me as if because I am a woman it were my profession to be made love to. First you, old pal. I forgave you because you were nice about your wife.
HYPATIA. Oh! oh! oh! Oh, papa!
