alice. [proceeding to explain.] Therefore you're not fond of creeds and ceremonies. Therefore . . as the good things of this wordly world don't satisfy you, you shirk contact with it all you can. I understand this temptation to neglect and despise practical things. But if one yields to it one's character narrows and cheapens. That's a pity . . but it's so.
edward. [his eyes far away.] D'you ever feel that there aren't enough windows in a house?
alice. [prosaically.] In this weather . . too many.
edward. Well then . . in a house—especially in a big city—in my office at work, then . . one is out of hearing of all the music of the world. And when one does get back to Nature, instead of being all curves to her roundness, one is all corners.
alice. [smiling at him.] Yes, you love to think idly . . just as Hugh does. You do it quite well, too. [then briskly.] Edward, may I scold you?
edward. For that?
alice. Because of that. You're grown to be a sloven lately . . deliberately letting yourself be unhappy.
edward. Is happiness under one's control?
alice. My friend, you shouldn't neglect your happiness any more than you neglect to wash your face. Here has the squalour of your work been making you poor. Because it was liable to be stopped at any moment uncompleted . . why should that let your life be incomplete? Edward, for the last eighteen months you've been more like a moral portent than a man. You've not had a smile to throw to a friend . . or an opinion upon any subject. You've dropped your Volunteering. [he protests.] I know there's something comic in volunteering . . though Heaven knows what it is! I suppose you found it out of keeping with your unhappy fate. And how slack you were in your politics last November. I don't believe you even voted . .
edward. [contrite at this.] That was wrong of me!