TROTTER. [frantic] Stop talking French to me: it's not a proper language for a young girl. Great heavens! how is it possible that a few innocent pleasantries should be so frightfully misunderstood? Ive tried all my life to be sincere and simple, to be unassuming and kindly. Ive lived a blameless life. Ive supported the Censorship in the face of ridicule and insult. And now I'm told that I'm a centre of Immoralism! of Modern Minxism! a trifler with the most sacred subjects! a Nietzschean!! perhaps a Shavian!!!
FANNY. Do you mean you are really on the serious side, Mr Trotter?
TROTTER. Of course I'm on the serious side. How dare you ask me such a question?
FANNY. Then why dont you play for it?
TROTTER. I do play for it—short, of course, of making myself ridiculous.
FANNY. What! not make yourself ridiculous for the sake of a good cause! Oh, Mr Trotter. Thats vieux jeu.
TROTTER. [shouting at her] Dont talk French. I will not allow it.
FANNY. But this dread of ridicule is so frightfully out of date. The Cambridge Fabian Society—
TROTTER. I forbid you to mention the Fabian Society to me.
FANNY. Its motto is "You cannot learn to skate without making yourself ridiculous."