JULIA. How have you the face to turn round like this after insulting and torturing me!
CHARTERIS. Never mind, dearest: you never did understand me; and you never will. Our vivisecting friend has made a successful experiment at last.
JULIA (earnestly). It is you who are the vivisector—a far crueller, more wanton vivisector than he.
CHARTERIS. Yes; but then I learn so much more from my experiments than he does! And the victims learn as much as I do. That's where my moral superiority comes in.
JULIA (sitting down again on the couch with rueful humour). Well, you shall not experiment on me any more. Go to your Grace if you want a victim. She'll be a tough one.
CHARTERIS (reproachfully sitting down beside her). And you drove me to propose to her to escape from you! Suppose she had accepted me, where should I be now?
JULIA. Where I am, I suppose, now that I have accepted Paramore.
CHARTERIS. But I should have made Grace unhappy. (Julia sneers). However, now I come to think of it, you'll make Paramore unhappy. And yet if you refused him he would be in despair. Poor devil!
JULIA (her temper flashing up for a moment again). He is a better man than you.
CHARTERIS (humbly). I grant you that, my dear.