"It does matter."
He has not been a moral man himself, but at fifty he likes to faire la morale pour les autres. When we are compelled to relinquish cakes and ale ourselves, we begin honestly to believe them indigestible for everybody; why should they be sold, or be made, at all?
"It does matter," he repeats. "Your people are too larky, much too larky. You grow worse every year. You don't care a straw what's said about 'em so long as they please you, and you let 'em carry on till there's the devil to pay."
"They pay him,—I don't; and they like it."
"I know they like it, but I don't choose you should give 'em opportunity for it."
"Oh, nonsense!"
"Not nonsense at all. This house is a kind of Agapemone, a sort of Orleans Club."
"You ought not to be bored in it, then."
"One is always bored at one's own place. I tell you I don't like your people. You ask everybody who wants to meet somebody else; and it's never respectable. It's a joke at the clubs. Jack's always saying to his Jill, 'We'll get Lady Usk to ask us together,' and they do. I say it's indecent."
"But, my dear, if Jack sulks without his Jill, and if Jill's in bad form without Jack, one must ask them together. I want people to like me and to enjoy themselves."