LADY UTTERWORD. Yes: horses. Why have we never been able to let this house? Because there are no proper stables. Go anywhere in England where there are natural, wholesome, contented, and really nice English people; and what do you always find? That the stables are the real centre of the household; and that if any visitor wants to play the piano the whole room has to be upset before it can be opened, there are so many things piled on it. I never lived until I learned to ride; and I shall never ride really well because I didn't begin as a child. There are only two classes in good society in England: the equestrian classes and the neurotic classes. It isn't mere convention: everybody can see that the people who hunt are the right people and the people who don't are the wrong ones.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. There is some truth in this. My ship made a man of me; and a ship is the horse of the sea.
LADY UTTERWORD. Exactly how Hastings explained your being a gentleman.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Not bad for a numskull. Bring the man here with you next time: I must talk to him.
LADY UTTERWORD. Why is Randall such an obvious rotter? He is well bred; he has been at a public school and a university; he has been in the Foreign Office; he knows the best people and has lived all his life among them. Why is he so unsatisfactory, so contemptible? Why can't he get a valet to stay with him longer than a few months? Just because he is too lazy and pleasure-loving to hunt and shoot. He strums the piano, and sketches, and runs after married women, and reads literary books and poems. He actually plays the flute; but I never let him bring it into my house. If he would only—[she is interrupted by the melancholy strains of a flute coming from an open window above. She raises herself indignantly in the hammock]. Randall, you have not gone to bed. Have you been listening? [The flute replies pertly]. How vulgar! Go to bed instantly, Randall: how dare you? [The window is slammed down. She subsides]. How can anyone care for such a creature!
MRS HUSHABYE. Addy: do you think Ellie ought to marry poor Alfred merely for his money?
MANGAN [much alarmed]. What's that? Mrs Hushabye, are my affairs to be discussed like this before everybody?
LADY UTTERWORD. I don't think Randall is listening now.
MANGAN. Everybody is listening. It isn't right.
MRS HUSHABYE. But in the dark, what does it matter? Ellie doesn't mind. Do you, Ellie?