MRS. MORLAND. Perhaps that would be a rather creditable epitaph for any man, James, who has gone through as much as you have. What better encouragement to the young than to be able to tell them that happiness keeps breaking through? (She puts the pipe, which she has been filling, in his mouth.)
MR. MORLAND. If I smoke, Fanny, I shall despise myself more than ever.
MRS. MORLAND. To please me.
MR. MORLAND (as she holds the light). I don’t feel easy about it, not at all easy. (With a happy thought.) At any rate, I won’t get the dress suit.
MRS. MORLAND. Your dress suit is shining like a mirror.
MR. MORLAND. Isn’t it! I thought of a jacket suit only. The V-shaped waistcoat seems to be what they are all wearing now.
MRS. MORLAND. Would you have braid on the trousers?
MR. MORLAND. I was wondering. You see— Oh, Fanny, you are just humouring me.
MRS. MORLAND. Not at all. And as for the old Adam in you, dear Adam, there is still something of the old Eve in me. Our trip to Switzerland two years ago with Simon, I enjoyed every hour of it. The little card parties here, am I not called the noisy one; think of the girls I have chaperoned and teased and laughed with, just as if I had never had a girl myself.
MR. MORLAND. Your brightness hasn’t been all pretence?