LADY TORMINSTER. Tell me why you mean to leave us. And remember—I shan't let this one go out.
SIR GEOFFREY. My explanation will be handed to you with your cup of tea in the morning.
LADY TORMINSTER. And you will be gone?
SIR GEOFFREY. I shall be gone. There is a train at 7.45—which will be packed with husbands. I shall breakfast in town.
LADY TORMINSTER. Why?
SIR GEOFFREY. Well, one must breakfast somewhere. It's a convention.
LADY TORMINSTER. Sir Geoffrey, I want you to tell me what this means.
SIR GEOFFREY. Give your decision, said the judge to the arbitrator, but never your reasons. I go, because I go. Besides, has one reasons? Why do people die, or get married, or buy umbrellas? Because of typhoid, love, or the rain? Not at all. Isn't that so?
LADY TORMINSTER. I wish you'd be serious.
SIR GEOFFREY. I'm fearfully serious. When Jack shot that tiger he had to go so near the brute that he held his life in his hands. Do you know what was my chief impression as I lay there, with the ugly cat's paw upon my chest, beginning to rip me?