MAGGIE. You are quite wrong, I’m sure, Lil. He doesn’t want to leave you at all. He wants to leave his work.
MRS. M. Perhaps he does. So do other people very often. Suppose we all stopped work when we didn’t like it? A pretty muddle the world would be in. Charley is forgetting there is such a thing as duty.
LILY. He’s very unhappy—and I—I can’t make him happy.
MRS. M. So he ought to be miserable with such ideas in his head. I never heard of such a thing! The sooner Mr. Tennant goes the better. He’s been putting Charley up to this, I suppose?
MAGGIE. You don’t know Mr. Tennant, mother. He’s not that sort.
MRS. M. Then what made Charley think of it at all?
MAGGIE. It’s just a feeling you get sometimes, mother. You can’t help it. Office work is awf’lly monotonous.
MRS. M. Of course it is. So is all work. Do you expect work to be pleasant? Does anybody ever like work? The idea is absurd. Anyone would think work was to be pleasant. You don’t come into the world to have pleasure. We’ve got to do our duty, and the more cheerfully we can do it, the better for ourselves and everybody else.
LILY. I—I didn’t mean to tell you.
MRS. M. He ought to be talked to.