MANGAN. Serve you right! Do you hear? Serve you right! You're just cruel. Cruel.
MRS HUSHABYE. Yes: cruelty would be delicious if one could only find some sort of cruelty that didn't really hurt. By the way [sitting down beside him on the arm of the chair], what's your name? It's not really Boss, is it?
MANGAN [shortly]. If you want to know, my name's Alfred.
MRS HUSHABYE [springs up]. Alfred!! Ellie, he was christened after Tennyson!!!
MANGAN [rising]. I was christened after my uncle, and never had a penny from him, damn him! What of it?
MRS HUSHABYE. It comes to me suddenly that you are a real person: that you had a mother, like anyone else. [Putting her hands on his shoulders and surveying him]. Little Alf!
MANGAN. Well, you have a nerve.
MRS HUSHABYE. And you have a heart, Alfy, a whimpering little heart, but a real one. [Releasing him suddenly]. Now run and make it up with Ellie. She has had time to think what to say to you, which is more than I had [she goes out quickly into the garden by the port door].
MANGAN. That woman has a pair of hands that go right through you.
ELLIE. Still in love with her, in spite of all we said about you?