Arnold. I can’t look on her as my mother.
Elizabeth. What you can’t get over is that she didn’t think of you. Some of us are more mother and some of us more woman. It gives me a little thrill when I think that she loved that man so much. She sacrificed her name, her position, and her child to him.
Arnold. You really can’t expect the said child to have any great affection for the mother who treated him like that.
Elizabeth. No, I don’t think I do. But I think it’s a pity after all these years that you shouldn’t be friends.
Arnold. I wonder if you realise what it was to grow up under the shadow of that horrible scandal. Everywhere, at school, and at Oxford, and afterwards in London, I was always the son of Lady Kitty Cheney. Oh, it was cruel, cruel!
Elizabeth. Yes, I know, Arnold. It was beastly for you.
Arnold. It would have been bad enough if it had been an ordinary case, but the position of the people made it ten times worse. My father was in the House then, and Porteous—he hadn’t succeeded to the title—was in the House too; he was Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and he was very much in the public eye.
Anna. My father always used to say he was the ablest man in the party. Every one was expecting him to be Prime Minister.
Arnold. You can imagine what a boon it was to the British public. They hadn’t had such a treat for a generation. The most popular song of the day was about my mother. Did you ever hear it? “Naughty Lady Kitty. Thought it such a pity . . .”
Elizabeth. [Interrupting.] Oh, Arnold, don’t!