“Because it’s no more natural, no more central, no more in line with the truth of things than you are, Sally.”
“But, my dear, you surely aren’t a belated follower of Tolstoi!” cried Mrs. Wolfstein. “You don’t want us all to live like day labourers.”
“I don’t want anybody to do anything, but if happiness is to be taught it must not be by a man or by a Londoner.”
“I had no idea you had been caught by the cult of simplicity,” said Mrs. Wolfstein. “But you are so clever. You reveal your dislikes but conceal your preferences. Most women think that if they only conceal their dislikes they are quite perfectly subtle.”
“Subtle people are delicious,” said Lady Manby, putting her mouth on one side. “They remind me of a kleptomaniac I once knew who had a little pocket closed by a flap let into the front of her gown. When she dined out she filled it with scraps. Once she dined with us and I saw her, when she thought no one was watching, peppering her pocket with cayenne, and looking so delightfully sly and thieving. Subtle people are always peppering their little pockets and thinking nobody sees them.”
“And lots of people don’t,” said Mrs. Wolfstein.
“The vices are divinely comic,” continued Lady Manby, looking every moment more like a teapot. “I think it’s such a mercy. Fancy what a lot of fun we should lose if there were no drunkards, for instance!”
Lady Cardington looked shocked.
“The virtues are often more comic than the vices,” said Mrs. Trent, with calm authority. “Dramatists know that. Think of the dozens of good farces whose foundation is supreme respectability in contact with the wicked world.”
“I didn’t know anyone called respectability a virtue,” cried Sally Perceval.