CANDIDA (jarred). Oh, James, how could you spoil it all!
MARCHBANKS (firing up). Yes, to be idle, selfish and useless: that is to be beautiful and free and happy: hasn't every man desired that with all his soul for the woman he loves? That's my ideal: what's yours, and that of all the dreadful people who live in these hideous rows of houses? Sermons and scrubbing brushes! With you to preach the sermon and your wife to scrub.
CANDIDA (quaintly). He cleans the boots, Eugene. You will have to clean them to-morrow for saying that about him.
MARCHBANKS. Oh! don't talk about boots. Your feet should be beautiful on the mountains.
CANDIDA. My feet would not be beautiful on the Hackney Road without boots.
BURGESS (scandalized). Come, Candy, don't be vulgar. Mr. Morchbanks ain't accustomed to it. You're givin' him the 'orrors again. I mean the poetic ones.
(Morell is silent. Apparently he is busy with his letters: really he is puzzling with misgiving over his new and alarming experience that the surer he is of his moral thrusts, the more swiftly and effectively Eugene parries them. To find himself beginning to fear a man whom he does not respect affects him bitterly.)
(Miss Garnett comes in with a telegram.)
PROSERPINE (handing the telegram to Morell). Reply paid. The boy's waiting. (To Candida, coming back to her machine and sitting down.) Maria is ready for you now in the kitchen, Mrs. Morell. (Candida rises.) The onions have come.
MARCHBANKS (convulsively). Onions!