ALGERNON.
Because you are like a pink rose, Cousin Cecily.
CECILY.
I don’t think it can be right for you to talk to me like that. Miss Prism never says such things to me.
ALGERNON.
Then Miss Prism is a short-sighted old lady. [Cecily puts the rose in his buttonhole.] You are the prettiest girl I ever saw.
CECILY.
Miss Prism says that all good looks are a snare.
ALGERNON.
They are a snare that every sensible man would like to be caught in.
CECILY.
Oh, I don’t think I would care to catch a sensible man. I shouldn’t know what to talk to him about.
[They pass into the house. Miss Prism and Dr. Chasuble return.]
MISS PRISM.
You are too much alone, dear Dr. Chasuble. You should get married. A misanthrope I can understand—a womanthrope, never!
CHASUBLE.
[With a scholar’s shudder.] Believe me, I do not deserve so neologistic a phrase. The precept as well as the practice of the Primitive Church was distinctly against matrimony.
MISS PRISM.
[Sententiously.] That is obviously the reason why the Primitive Church has not lasted up to the present day. And you do not seem to realise, dear Doctor, that by persistently remaining single, a man converts himself into a permanent public temptation. Men should be more careful; this very celibacy leads weaker vessels astray.