VIVIE [with scarcely veiled contempt for this effort at conversation] Very.
CROFTS [with brutal good humor, as if he liked her pluck] Well thats not what I came to say. [Sitting down beside her] Now listen, Miss Vivie. I’m quite aware that I’m not a young lady’s man.
VIVIE. Indeed, Sir George?
CROFTS. No; and to tell you the honest truth I don’t want to be either. But when I say a thing I mean it; and when I feel a sentiment I feel it in earnest; and what I value I pay hard money for. Thats the sort of man I am.
VIVIE. It does you great credit, I’m sure.
CROFTS. Oh, I don’t mean to praise myself. I have my faults, Heaven knows: no man is more sensible of that than I am. I know I’m not perfect: thats one of the advantages of being a middle-aged man; for I’m not a young man, and I know it. But my code is a simple one, and, I think, a good one. Honor between man and man; fidelity between man and woman; and no can’t about this religion or that religion, but an honest belief that things are making for good on the whole.
VIVIE [with biting irony] “A power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness,” eh?
CROFTS [taking her seriously] Oh certainly. Not ourselves, of course. Y o u understand what I mean. Well, now as to practical matters. You may have an idea that I’ve flung my money about; but I havn’t: I’m richer today than when I first came into the property. I’ve used my knowledge of the world to invest my money in ways that other men have overlooked; and whatever else I may be, I’m a safe man from the money point of view.
VIVIE. It’s very kind of you to tell me all this.