C.-C. My dear, her soul is as thickly rouged as her face. She hasn’t an emotion that’s sincere. She’s tinsel. You think I’m a cruel, cynical old man. Why, when I think of what she was, if I didn’t laugh at what she has become I should cry.
Elizabeth. How do you know she wouldn’t be just the same now if she’d remained your wife? Do you think your influence would have had such a salutary effect on her?
C.-C. [Good-humouredly.] I like you when you’re bitter and rather insolent.
Elizabeth. D’you like me enough to answer my question?
C.-C. She was only twenty-seven when she went away. She might have become anything. She might have become the woman you expected her to be. There are very few of us who are strong enough to make circumstances serve us. We are the creatures of our environment. She’s a silly, worthless woman because she’s led a silly, worthless life.
Elizabeth. [Disturbed.] You’re horrible to-day.
C.-C. I don’t say it’s I who could have prevented her from becoming this ridiculous caricature of a pretty woman grown old. But life could. Here she would have had the friends fit to her station, and a decent activity, and worthy interests. Ask her what her life has been all these years among divorced women and kept women and the men who consort with them. There is no more lamentable pursuit than a life of pleasure.
Elizabeth. At all events she loved and she loved greatly. I have only pity and affection for her.
C.-C. And if she loved what d’you think she felt when she saw that she had ruined Hughie? Look at him. He was tight last night after dinner and tight the night before.
Elizabeth. I know.