"Sylvia." "Good of you to come yourself." "You don't know." "I'm so sorry, Christopher." "There was a telegram from the office, from Macmaster." "Your mother died yesterday." "I did not expect it quite yet." "I killed your mother." "She died of a broken heart because I left you." "No, she didn't." "Then it was because I asked you to take me back." "My mother died from a medical condition, not a literary convention." "I suppose it's all over town that I went off with Potty Perowne." "I told Vincent Macmaster." "No one else knows." "That was nearish, though." "Oh, Christopher, has it been awful for you?" "It is thought that you went abroad to look after your mother." "You'll get your own back." "Only I wish you wouldn't do it by punishing me with your meal sack Anglican sainthood." "Give me Father Consett any day." "He called me a harlot and refused to shake my hand till he confessed me." "Father Consett is here?" "I showed him your telegram." "I want him to know that your condition for taking me back is to have your son damned for all eternity." "If it bothers you so much..." "Thank you." "I saw Gerald Drake somewhere, and I thought, "What a brute."" "How would I possibly have..." "Pretty box, though." "The pictures no doubt belong to the hotel's former existence." "Was it an abattoir?" "So very sad." "In the midst of life." "Oh, here we are." "There is a night express, you're right." "Wagons-lit, dining car, and you'll be at Groby with a day to spare before the funeral." "A public appearance together couldn't be more timely." "My cousin Westershire got wind of something and I was forced to lie to him." "As head of the family, the Duke takes it personally when lives become untidy." "I'm not going back to Christopher if I have to be in bed by 9:00." "My own bed, I mean, of course." "This was the last place Christianised in Europe." "The old pagan demons are still at their work and the sooner you are away from here the sooner you'll not have such wicked thoughts." "They are yours, not mine," "I meant my own bed as distinct from my husband's." "Father Consett and I will return at leisure by road." " He has business in Berlin." " Irish business?" "Now, why would you think that?" "I will not interfere in your social life." "But our old life, with a town house to keep up and entertain in," "I could not accept your generosity as before." "I'm not going to live in Yorkshire." "Macmaster has found a suitable flat across the way from his rooms in Gray's Inn." "A flat in Holborn?" "I couldn't have imagined anything more humiliating." "Ah, it is supposed to be a penance." "It's not a reward." " You mind your own business." " Your soul is my business!" "But my dear boy, the whole world will understand exactly what we have managed to keep from it." "You would not be the first landowner to give up a house in town in protest against the new tax." "The Duke would applaud you." "I shouldn't wonder if he lends you the Westershire box at the opera." "I never heard such bosh!" "I will be in my room praying for death, or at least packing for it." "Would you send me your maid?" "I'd better go myself." "Sylvia hit my maid with a hairbrush and I only borrowed her." "I don't want to return her damaged." "Now, then, Christopher, your son is Roman Catholic born and that's the fact of the matter." "But Michael will grow up with my sister's children in an Anglican parsonage and the facts must jostle as they may." "Slainte." "And by the way, Father, your Republican friends should know that Germany is looking for a European war and will find a reason for one, probably in the next two years, so don't fill your dance card in Berlin." "Damnable business." "Do you want a pipe?" "Thank you, no." "Oh." "Uh, there's a boy I'm putting through Eton." "Gilbert Wannop's boy." " Hmm." " For old times' sake." "Eton and then his father's old college." "Nothing in writing." "But, uh, you'll see to it if it comes to that?" "Of course, Father." " By God." "She looks like..." " Yes, sir." "It doesn't do." "Stealing the show from her mother-in-law." "The cedar will have to come down before it knocks over the house." "Father would sooner take down the house." "Young men and maidens have made their marriage vows under the Groby Tree for longer than memory." "If Mark won't do it, it'll have to wait for Michael, then." "Michael?" "I want you to meet a new friend, Cleo." "Don't be frightened." "Come say hello." "You see?" "She won't bite." "Has he stopped wetting the bed?" "Oh, yes, sir." "It just needed a little firmness." "I remember, Marchie." "Your bath, madam." "Do you know, Evie, there isn't a water closet in the whole damn house." "I got a flea in my ear." "No ashtrays, either." "Master's orders." "Thank you." " Are they looking after you?" " Yes'm." "Mr Jenkins, the butler, chose me to sit next to him at Lunch on account of your turn out." "First hobble skirt at Groby." "They've only seen them in the picture papers." "Mmm, I rang down for a housemaid." "I won't have you emptying chamber pots." "Here." "May I speak with my wife?" "She's in the dressing room, sir." "Oh, it's all right, you can come in here." "Sorry, I didn't..." "Effie is waiting with her family to go home." "You want to say goodbye to Michael?" "Yes." "Yes, of course." "She took the towel." "Oh, go away if you can't bear to look!" "Higher than the beasts, lower than the angels." "Stuck between the two in our idiot's Eden." "God, I'm so bored of it all." "Guarding or granting admission to a temple no decent butcher would give room to on his offal tray." "I'd rather be a cow in a field." "Ask someone to bring Michael to me, will you, please?" "I'll bring him." "You're hurting yourself for no reason, keeping the boy in Yorkshire." "I'm going to live chaste, just because I want to." "It'll be Swedish exercises and occasional retreats." "Father Consett knows a convent where you can bring your own maid." "A suite?" "But darling, what does one do here a whole weekend?" "I don't think that's an ashtray." "No, I don't think Johnnie would wear it." "He'd just look at me as if I'd gone off to Maidenhead with someone, and we both knew it." "I've had some rotten times at Maidenhead." "Evie, would you take Mrs Pelham's cigarette outside and put it somewhere?" "Yes, madam." "So she does have a name." "It was decent of you to come with me but, um, I don't know why," "I don't believe my retreat can begin until you go." "I bet you'll be on the up train tomorrow, not enough men here." "If there's one thing that drove me out of London, it's the way I can't enter a room without all the little women instantly cleaving to their men as though to say, "Hands off."" "And then hating me all the more when they realise" "I have no use for their treasured rubbish." "No more "he and she" for me." "I owe it to myself to be fair to Christopher." "He's up in Yorkshire again, seeing Michael." "The move to Gray's Inn has been a success." "He knows his stuff with furniture and pictures." "He'll walk into a saleroom and sniff out what everybody else has missed." "He just knows everything." "Of course, he wants to make me suffer." "What man wouldn't?" "Oh, I'll make him realise his failure by living with him in perfect good humor." "And then one day, after a whisky or two," "he must want to, sometimes." "Why, you're soppy about him." "Take that, Dalrymple!" "Can someone tell me why I am here, watching the ruling class in its death throes?" " Where else would you be?" " I would be at a lecture on "Imperialism, the Last Stage of Capitalism"" "at the Working Men's College in Camberwell." "Well, since you're here, why don't you introduce us to your friends?" "Because both my friends are at the lecture." "Perhaps you should go up to the Working Men's College in Camberwell in September instead of Oxford." "Some of us are working to destroy the citadels of privilege from within." "Well, that's lucky for some of us." "Catch it!" "Oh!" "Well done, Val!" "Well done." "You beastly little show-off!" "Of course, it had to be Miss Wannop." "General, are we on speaking terms?" "You still owe me ?" "50 for driving your motor into my mare last year." "Tietjens had the rig on the wrong side of the road, that's what." "Tietjens?" "So it was him, driving your rig at daybreak?" "Good morning, Lady Claudine." "Actually, it was partly the fog and partly that your brother didn't sound his horn." "I was a witness." "A witness, indeed." "So was I." "A witness to what, I wouldn't know." "Do excuse me." " I've just been complaining about you." " Good lord." "Uh, why, what have I done?" "Your lot, I mean." "Some of us have had to rusticate ourselves for the season." "My milliner has let go of three of her girls and it serves you right if you lose the footman vote, too." "Oh, Miss Wannop." "Do you know Mrs Satterthwaite?" "How do you do?" "She's our friend Tietjens mother-in-Law." "Oh, is that my fame?" " You know Christopher?" " Hardly." "But I did meet Mr Tietjens last year in Rye." "I haven't seen him since." "Actually, this tea is for my mother, and I mustn't inflict myself on Mr Waterhouse with my inferior mind and my general incapacity for anything much except motherhood, so if you'll excuse me." "That's not at all what I..." "Oh, that's my first suffragette." "Got it!" "You're Tietjens' feminist." "If you're thinking of starting something," "I've a good mind to smack your bare bottom." "I'm sure you think of little else." "You have a nerve showing your face here." "I know you're Tietjens' whore, you're all gasping for it, you militant bitches." "How dare you say something about a man you're not fit to serve as a boot boy?" "About him?" "Good God, the girl's in love." "I wanted to write about the Woman's Bill, but the editor said, "Oh, dear Mrs Wannop,"" ""our readers already know the Lords are going to chuck it back."" "What they have no grasp of is the Balkan crisis." "Where did you get all this from?" "Christopher Tietjens." "Oh, you..." "You spoke to Mr Tietjens?" "Is he an expert on the Balkan situation?" "I suppose he is." "Because his father boodled me into this job in the first place having shares in the paper, it would reflect very badly on him if I were to make a bish of this article." "Not to mention losing five guineas a week." "Oh!" "Bother it." "I meant to say that Serbia has no more right to demand access to the sea than Berkshire." "Christopher, of course." "Well, it's men waving their spears." "As if war were only about maps." "Now, time's up, I'm expected with Mrs Duchemin." "So, it's in the box." "I don't wish to come between a country parson, albeit a gentleman of means, to say the least." "And one, moreover, with a distinguished association with a great university." ""Breakfast" Duchemin of Cambridge." "Between even such a man and the organ of the parish." "Organ." "What?" "You refer to my organ?" "No." "Yes." "I refer to the parish magazine." "Of course." "I think it's going to be all right." "He had a cooked breakfast, thank God." "It's the fasting that brings it on." "But the parish magazine is not self-evidently the appropriate platform from which to condemn restrictive female undergarments as being a danger to the sexual health of our women." "You think so?" "Oh, it's sweet of you to come and hold my hand." "Edith, are you sure you're safe here?" "There's nothing to be done." "I just run a bath and think of Browning." "Drowning?" "The poet Browning, and the Rossettis." "Mr Macmaster has taken to coming down at the weekends to talk to my husband about the poets he knew in his young days." "I'd like you to know Mr Macmaster better." "He has opened worlds to me." "I have the honor of receiving for him on what are becoming known as Macmaster Fridays." "We might find a little job for you, by the tea table." "What do you think?" "Well, I, I..." "Vincent, Mr Macmaster, has rooms in Gray's Inn, right across from some people you know, I think." "Mr and Mrs Tietjens?" "Does he?" "Ah, my dear." "His Grace was most complimentary about the Lapsang Souchong." "He enjoys the aroma of smoke." "Thank you." "Delightful." "I do hope your little convocation, should I call it, was..." "Oh, indeed, yes." "Sweetness and light." "All well." "I hadn't dared hope." "What is it, dear?" "Sulphur." "Can't you smell it?" "Brimstone." "I smelt him out the minute he came in!" "Who, dear?" "Beelzebub." "He thought I was taken in." "You remember Miss Wannop?" "He takes a pleasing shape." "I have just been telling Miss Wannop about Mr Macmaster's circle of beautiful intellect." "All devoted to the higher things..." "But I was ready for him." "Beauty, truth, the shepherd's pipe, the gem-like flame, the wine-dark sea..." "Lord, your servant slept when your handmaiden was taken into bondage with the corset, but he wakes now." "And the soul, the beautiful soul, souls in harmony with our little gathering of the finer minds, quite the finest, really." "The very best young writers artists..." "And cast out the Devil's new contraption, the brassiere and all the swaddling and strapping that constricts the freely flowing and God-glorifying bounty of belly" " and breast, of airy buttock..." "Why, Mr Duchemin, you are one of us." "All we new women, united against the corset." "It is the very devil." "You must write an article for our paper." "How splendid." "Sylvia, good morning." " Merry Christmas." " Merry Christmas, General." "You don't know my ABC, Major Perowne." "Of course I do." "Merry Christmas, Potty." "Potty?" "You've been keeping that one under your hat, Peter." "Yeah." "Merry Christmas." "Ah, look here." "I want to talk to that husband of yours." "Where is he?" " What has he done?" " Never you mind." "But you can tell him that the War Office wants the entire Department of Statistics lined up and shot." "He's in Yorkshire over the New Year with his sister's family." "Happy New Year." " Happy New Year, Marchie." " Happy New Year." "Happy New Year." " Happy New Year." " Happy New Year." " Happy New Year." " Happy New Year." " Happy New Year." " Happy New Year." "Well, it's up the stairs to Bedfordshire for me." "Good night, sir." "Good night, Marchie." "You'll look in on Michael?" "I go back to town tomorrow to face the warmongers." "Are they after your blood?" "No one was counting in the cost of losing our export trade to the Continent." "Do you think there will be a war?" "If Germany puts it off for much longer," "Russia will have enough railway to put her army on the frontier in 20 days." "So the Germans are in a panic." "It'll take them twice that long to beat France." "And they don't want to be fighting on two fronts." "Goodness." "Things you chaps in London know." "Hmm." "Would you like me to come and tuck you up?" "No, thank you very much." " Well, it's only for a minute." " No, Brownlie." " Dash it, Sylvia." " Happy New Year." "Darling?" "Christopher?" "I hope you had a lovely evening, madam." "Happy New Year." "What are you doing waiting up?" "Go to bed!" "Well, now you're here..." " Votes for women!" " Shame on the Lords!" "Votes for women!" "Votes for women!" "Votes for women!" "You can't do that here, ladies." "Be off with you now." "Well, it's open to the public and we are the public." "No, you don't." "No!" "Nobody gets in, no!" "What are you all gawping at?" "Do you think that is all women are good for?" "Hey!" "What are you doing?" "Madam, please!" "Please!" "No need to manhandle me!" "Put it down, then!" "There you are, at last, Brownlie." "Dash it, Sylvia, I don't know what you mean." "I've been waiting ages." " I said let's meet at the Ritz." " Well, it's near the Ritz." "Don't sulk or I'll be sorry I came at all." "What shall I look at?" "Well, I don't much care for any of them." "They're well past, if you ask me." "Past Impressionism, you see." "They're called Past Impressionists." "You stay with the banking, Brownlie, that's what I advise." "Aren't they?" "I might buy one to annoy Christopher." "I'm all for that." "I'll buy it for you if you stop being so cruel to me." "Yes." "Yes." "Where did you find this?" "In Dover Street." "I've no doubt it's young Tom Girtin on one of his topographical tours in the 17905." "You must have it in your bedroom." "Now I'm hurt." "Oh?" "No, I like it very much!" "The breakfast room, then." "Yes," "Perhaps" "I'll leave it for you." " Good night." " Good night." "You would marry Mrs Duchemin, of course, if she were free?" "Yes." "Why doesn't she have her husband certified?" "Well, she's loyal." "Do you find that contradictory?" "No, I don't." "But no disrespect, surely a better reason is that the Lunacy Commissioners would hold the purse strings." " Yes." " Whereas, as things are..." "I wanted ask your advice." "Suppose she lent me the money?" "Only a thousand or two." "I want to live in a manner worthy of Edith, naturally." "Chrissie, it's only timing." "The money will come to her in the end." "What's the difference?" "None, except as to how you are perceived as a gentleman." "Don't touch the Duchemins' money." "I'll give you what you need." " Chrissie!" " It's of no consequence." "I came into some funds from my mother, rather a lot by my standards." "Chrissie, it would be a loan." "I'm afraid I never lend money." " I won't take it otherwise." " Think of it as you wish." "Come up, I'll write you a cheque." "Thank you, Chrissie." "I'm about to be handing out sums of money, too, small sums from the Royal Literary Fund." "It seems some poor beggar has to supervise the disbursements." "And the King's gold stick of the bed chamber or some such liked my little book on Browning." "Congratulations." "You'll be in the honors list soon enough." "Do you think so?" "Oh, Chrissie, I wish you'd come to one of my Fridays." "I wouldn't want to be rude to your aesthetes." "You know, I'm taking August in Scotland this year." "What about you?" "Sylvia has accepted to join the Duke's house party at his place in Northumberland." "You remember telling me once, two years ago at Rye, we'd be at war about the time the grouse shooting began in 1914?" " Time's running out." " Yes, I'm afraid so." "Make the most of Scotland." "And do be circumspect." "I know what it is that makes a man want to get away with a woman he likes, but that desire, which is to be allowed to finish his conversations with her," "must be resisted." "Oh, Chrissie." "What you know!" "Open the car door for the lady-wife, I don't think." "Welcome!" "Oh, thank you, sir." "Oh." "Mr and Mrs Macmaster, is it?" "Welcome!" " Ah, thank you, sir." " Thank you." "Ah, you will of course let Mrs Mackenzie know if you need anything." "They know." "They know!" "Oh, no, they don't." "Darling." "Darling, it'll be all right." "We've dreamed of this." "To be away together." "Lock the door." "Lock the door!" "Darling." "Oh, no, no, don't mess up the bed!" "My love!" "Are you expecting a good season, jack?" "Yes." "Plenty of birds." "Won't be long now, eh?" "No good asking me." "Bertram says Asquith and Lord Grey never discuss war in cabinet." "Not in front of the children." " The cabinet talks about women." " Women?" " Oh." "Women." " Women and Ireland." "Mother's priest has turned her Republican." "That's just Sylvia pulling the strings of the shower bath." "What war, Glorvina?" "It isn't going to be our war." "If it had been us in a tin pot country like Serbia, we'd have declared war three weeks ago." "Exactly." "What are the Austrians waiting for?" "For an assurance that Russia won't come in on the Serbian side." "And Russia is waiting for an assurance that Germany won't come in on the Austrian side." "There you are!" "No stomach for a fight." "There's not going to be any war." "This isn't our own chutney." "Why are they all in..." "What's frightening them?" "They're all in a...panic." "Up there, look." "It's a fish eagle." "Not even on duty." "Listen, Sylvia, they're all living in cloud cuckoo land." "I want to see Michael before we find ourselves on a train south." "A fish eagle." "What?" "The Germans are itching to get at the Russians." "France will declare war on Germany, that's what the French-Russian pact is for." "Then it's us." "Germany will invade through Belgium." "If you don't stop, I'm going to jump." "Britain is committed to defend Belgian neutrality." "That's what I'd like to come back as." "A fish eagle." "I say." "Isn't that..." "Mrs Duchemin!" "We're..." "We're not leaving here together, you oaf!" "Yes, but..." "How..." "How will you..." "Oh, Chrissie, thank God you're here." "Your telegram bounced." "I was in Yorkshire, seeing Michael." " What's happened?" " Edith'll explain on the train." "I won't forget today in a hurry." "Well, none of us will." "Haven't you heard?" "We're at war with Germany." "Well, the French are saying that we're not pulling our weight." "And the Prime Minister wishes to show that, when measured against respective populations of single men of fighting age and suchlike, that our contribution compares very favorably to the French." "Does it?" "This document lumps together 72 battalions of Kitchener's volunteers who aren't even on the Western Front because they're still in training without half their kit." "That's a million men under arms committed to the fight!" "This is all about who is in control of strategy, I suppose." "Our masters take the view the Western Front must be under dual command, not, repeat not, under a single command, which would mean French command, obviously." "Why would it mean that, sir, obviously?" "Lord, I thought you were supposed to be clever." "Because the French army is 10 times the size of the British army, because the war is being fought on French soil, not British soil, because..." "Now, look here, Tietjens, I took you for a sound man." "This Department exists to show that just as there are different ways to put things in words, there are different ways to put things in numbers!" "I detest and despise the work I am asked to do in the Department, whose purpose seems to be to turn statistics into sophistry." "I am resigning." "Good morning." "Resigning?" "Don't you want to be a man of influence?" "No." "I'd prefer to be in the trenches." "Oh, God, give me the strength to strangle the Kaiser with my bare hands!" "You innocent!" "It's the soldiers who betrayed the cause." " You are talking rubbish!" " Class traitors!" "And the German socialists, too." "Voting for war like lickspittle lackeys." "Stop it!" "Stop it!" "I hope they die with blood spouting out of their lungs." " I thought you were a pacifist?" " Yes!" "I refuse to fight, but let the guilty get what they deserve!" "You are nothing but a lily-livered coward!" "As for you, I hope both sides rape every woman who they can get Edith?" "I thought of you because you're mixed in with the kind of woman who..." "What is it?" "What can I do?" "How do you get rid of a baby?" "Mr Duchemin?" "Hasn't he..." "Duchemin's been in the asylum for months and I'm caught by that jumped-up son of an Edinburgh fishwife who didn't know his business better than to..." "You mean Mr Macmaster?" "I never dreamt." "Well, what did you think we were doing?" "Comparing our beautiful souls?" "Well, yes!" "That is what I thought." "And poetry." "Oh, Edith!" "Your prince, your chevalier!" "That guttersnipe, shooting off like a tomcat in heat." "Don't, Edith!" "I know when it was." "I suppose you must." "When what was?" "Valentine, you do know how babies are made, don't you?" "Of course I do!" "But do you mean..." "You mean, you can do it without making a baby?" "Oh, go home, you goose!" "I'm sorry." "Oh..." "I'm so pointless." "Everything is so horrible." "Beastliness everywhere and I live like an ant but I thought at least there was you, living for love." "Someone rising clear above the muck for me, reaching for beautiful things." "Loving, being loved." "Now there's no one left and nothing." "Christopher Tietjens to see General Campion." "Follow me, sir." "After which, the adjutant will stand the battalion at ease and the band will play Land of Hope and Glory." "Sit down, Chrissie, you damn fool." "Then the adjutant will call out," ""There will be no more parades"" "and fall out." "And so on." "Try that on them." "I'm supposed to invent a ceremonial for disbanding the Kitchener battalions." "Disbanding?" "Well, we don't want them clogging up the army when the war is over." "So don't hitch your wagon to me if you want to see some fighting." "You can see where my opinions have got me." "The single command business?" "That's what did it for me at the office." "But what the hell has it got to do with you?" "And now you think you'll be some use as a soldier?" " Have you told Sylvia?" " Not yet." "She'll say the same thing as you, I suppose." "Well, I think you're a fool." "The office is going to get me out, anyway." "Too many black marks against me." "Go, then." "Add your little bit to the suffering, even if it's only your own." "I can't sleep in the night now because the pain is worse in the dark." "It spreads into every corner." "Black, like ink." "Printer's ink." "Newspapers dripping, hate and lies every day." "No, don't touch me now, when it's too late." "I'm going across to tell Macmaster." "Yes, do." "You're such a paragon of honorable behaviour, Christopher." "You're the cruelest man I know." "At times like this, one realizes no one has ever, ever captured grief like Michelangelo in his Pieta." "Unhappily, she looks like Stravinsky and he like Isadora." "Miss Wannop." "Mr Tietjens." "Tietjens!" "Hello, Vinnie, um..." "I forgot it was a Friday." "I had something to tell you." "What?" "People will be leaving soon." "Then I'll talk to Miss Wannop, meanwhile." "Though she's not pleased to see me." "The war has turned her against men as a sex." "First, you must greet Edith." "Is, uh, everything all right now?" "The Bishop turned out to be a Christian." "He knew Duchemin was a dangerous lunatic!" "Hmm." "Is your abortionist here?" "I'd like to kiss her." "Guggums!" "Look who's come." " Mrs Duchemin." " Mr Tietjens." "Ah, Chrissie, come and be introduced." "This is Tietjens, the star of our Department." "Actually, I share rooms with your brother Mark." "Really?" "You must be the new lodger." "Miss Wannop, come to the fire and tell me why you won't talk to me." "What is that smell, do you know?" "Chinese incense sticks." "Ah." "So, those were the geniuses." "Well, who am I to judge?" "That man over there isn't a genius." "His name's Ruggles." "Something to do with handing out honors at the Palace." "Macmaster's got his ear." "They're perfectly proper, the only clean way." "British way." "Well, I came over to tell Macmaster I'm joining the army." "I hoped we respected each other." "At least, I tremendously respect you and I hoped you'd respect me, too." "You don't respect me?" "Well, I would have liked you to have said it." "Oh, what difference does it make when there's all this pain, this torture?" "I haven't slept a whole night since." "I believe pain and fear must be worse at night." "Dear." "So queer." "My wife used almost exactly the words you used not an hour ago." "She too said that she couldn't respect me." "We have to do everything we can not to lose our men, don't you see?" "Besides, you know you are more useful here." "They'll never have me back." "The sentimentalist must be stoned to death." "He makes everyone uncomfortable." "You shouldn't be proud of despising your country." "Oh, don't believe that!" "I love every field and hedgerow." "The land is England, and once it was the foundation of order." "Before money took over and handed the country over to the swindlers and schemers." "Toryism of the pigs' trough." " Then what is your Toryism?" " Duty." "Duty and service to above and below, frugality, keeping your word, honoring the past," "looking after your people and beggaring yourself if need be, before letting duty go hang." "If we'd stayed out of it, I'd have gone over to France to fight for France." "For agriculture against industrialism." "For the 18th century against the 20th, if you like." "Hoped you'd understand." "Oh, I understand you." "You're as innocent about yourself as a child." "You would have thought all the same things in the 18th century." "Of course I would, and I would have been right!" "But you do make one collect one's thoughts." "Do you remember our ride in the mist, what you said about me three years ago?" "Well, I'm not that man now." "What?" "I can't remember." "I'm not an English country gentleman who let the country go to hell and never stirred himself except to say, "I told you so."" "Yes, I said that." "I said you ought to be in a museum." "I think I wanted to provoke you into bursting out of your glass cabinet." "Now it's a choice between bad and worse." "Well, I have this big, hulking body to throw into the war." "Nothing much to live for." "Because you know what I want I can't have." "What is it I know?" "What I stand for is gone." "But to live for." "You have something to live for." "What's that?" "Why didn't you kiss me then?" "Why didn't you?"