Dick has been teaching me to take life flippantly. And I have learnt that things are only serious if you take them seriously, and that is desperately stupid. [To Lucy.] Don't you agree with me?
Lucy.
No.
[Her tone, almost tragic, makes him pause
for an instant; but he is determined
that the conversation shall be purely conventional.
Alec.
It's so difficult to be serious without being absurd. That is the chief power of women, that life and death are merely occasions for a change of costume: marriage a creation in white, and the worship of God an opportunity for a Paris bonnet.
[Mrs. Crowley makes up her mind to force a
crisis, and she gets up.
Mrs. Crowley.
It's growing late, Dick. Won't you take me round the house?
Alec.