VIVIE [staring at him] Is that all you know?
PRAED. Certainly that is all.
VIVIE. Then you neither of you know anything. Your guesses are innocence itself compared with the truth.
PRAED [rising, startled and indignant, and preserving his politeness with an effort] I hope not. [More emphatically] I hope not, Miss Warren.
FRANK [whistles] Whew!
VIVIE. You are not making it easy for me to tell you, Mr Praed.
PRAED [his chivalry drooping before their conviction] If there is anything worse—that is, anything else—are you sure you are right to tell us, Miss Warren?
VIVIE. I am sure that if I had the courage I should spend the rest of my life in telling everybody—stamping and branding it into them until they all felt their part in its abomination as I feel mine. There is nothing I despise more than the wicked convention that protects these things by forbidding a woman to mention them. And yet I can’t tell you. The two infamous words that describe what my mother is are ringing in my ears and struggling on my tongue; but I can’t utter them: the shame of them is too horrible for me. [She buries her face in her hands. The two men, astonished, stare at one another and then at her. She raises her head again desperately and snatches a sheet of paper and a pen]. Here: let me draft you a prospectus.
FRANK. Oh, she’s mad. Do you hear, Viv? mad. Come! pull yourself together.
VIVIE. You shall see. [She writes]. “Paid up capital: not less than forty thousand pounds standing in the name of Sir George Crofts, Baronet, the chief shareholder. Premises at Brussels, Ostend, Vienna, and Budapest. Managing director: Mrs Warren”; and now don’t let us forget h e r qualifications: the two words. [She writes the words and pushes the paper to them]. There! Oh no: don’t read it: don’t! [She snatches it back and tears it to pieces; then seizes her head in her hands and hides her face on the table].