HECTOR. Our children are like that. They spend their holidays in the houses of their respectable schoolfellows.
LADY UTTERWORD. I shall invite them for Christmas.
HECTOR. Their absence leaves us both without our natural chaperones.
LADY UTTERWORD. Children are certainly very inconvenient sometimes. But intelligent people can always manage, unless they are Bohemians.
HECTOR. You are no Bohemian; but you are no Puritan either: your attraction is alive and powerful. What sort of woman do you count yourself?
LADY UTTERWORD. I am a woman of the world, Hector; and I can assure you that if you will only take the trouble always to do the perfectly correct thing, and to say the perfectly correct thing, you can do just what you like. An ill-conducted, careless woman gets simply no chance. An ill-conducted, careless man is never allowed within arm's length of any woman worth knowing.
HECTOR. I see. You are neither a Bohemian woman nor a Puritan woman. You are a dangerous woman.
LADY UTTERWORD. On the contrary, I am a safe woman.
HECTOR. You are a most accursedly attractive woman. Mind, I am not making love to you. I do not like being attracted. But you had better know how I feel if you are going to stay here.
LADY UTTERWORD. You are an exceedingly clever lady-killer, Hector. And terribly handsome. I am quite a good player, myself, at that game. Is it quite understood that we are only playing?