LADY UTTERWORD [patronizingly]. Of course, dear.
ELLIE. Then I'll leave you to Mr Hushabye. [She goes out through the hall].
HECTOR. That girl is mad about tales of adventure. The lies I have to tell her!
LADY UTTERWORD [not interested in Ellie]. When you saw me what did you mean by saying that you thought, and then stopping short? What did you think?
HECTOR [folding his arms and looking down at her magnetically]. May I tell you?
LADY UTTERWORD. Of course.
HECTOR. It will not sound very civil. I was on the point of saying, "I thought you were a plain woman."
LADY UTTERWORD. Oh, for shame, Hector! What right had you to notice whether I am plain or not?
HECTOR. Listen to me, Ariadne. Until today I have seen only photographs of you; and no photograph can give the strange fascination of the daughters of that supernatural old man. There is some damnable quality in them that destroys men's moral sense, and carries them beyond honor and dishonor. You know that, don't you?
LADY UTTERWORD. Perhaps I do, Hector. But let me warn you once for all that I am a rigidly conventional woman. You may think because I'm a Shotover that I'm a Bohemian, because we are all so horribly Bohemian. But I'm not. I hate and loathe Bohemianism. No child brought up in a strict Puritan household ever suffered from Puritanism as I suffered from our Bohemianism.