VIVIE. Wait a bit. That wasn’t the beginning. I went up to town on an invitation from some artistic people in Fitzjohn’s Avenue: one of the girls was a Newnham chum. They took me to the National Gallery—
PRAED [approving] Ah!! [He sits down, much relieved].
VIVIE [continuing]—to the Opera—
PRAED [still more pleased] Good!
VIVIE.—and to a concert where the band played all the evening: Beethoven and Wagner and so on. I wouldn’t go through that experience again for anything you could offer me. I held out for civility’s sake until the third day; and then I said, plump out, that I couldn’t stand any more of it, and went off to Chancery Lane. N o w you know the sort of perfectly splendid modern young lady I am. How do you think I shall get on with my mother?
PRAED [startled] Well, I hope—er—
VIVIE. It’s not so much what you hope as what you believe, that I want to know.
PRAED. Well, frankly, I am afraid your mother will be a little disappointed. Not from any shortcoming on your part, you know: I don’t mean that. But you are so different from her ideal.
VIVIE. Her what?!
PRAED. Her ideal.