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RIDGEON How, pray?
LOUIS Well, you set up to appreciate Je
RIDGEON (curtly] I loathe you. [He sits down again on the sofa].
LOUIS Just so. And yet you believe that Je
RIDGEON Were you lying?
LOUIS No; but you were smelling out a scandal instead of keeping your mind clean and wholesome. I can just play with people like you. I only asked you had you seen Je
B. B. [majestically] What do you mean by that, may I ask?
LOUIS Now, I’m only an immoral artist; but if y o u d told me that Je
WALPOLE It’s very hard to look you in the face, Dubedat; you have such a dazzling cheek. What about Mi
LOUIS Mi
RIDGEON We havnt trapped her into a mock marriage and deserted her.
LOUIS No: you wouldnt have the pluck. But dont fuss yourselves. I didnt desert little Mi
WALPOLE All h e r money. Thirty pounds.
LOUIS I said all o u r money: hers and mine too. Her thirty pounds didnt last three days. I had to borrow four times as much to spend on her. But I didnt grudge it; and she didnt grudge her few pounds either, the brave little lassie. When we were cleaned out, we’d had enough of it: you can hardly suppose that we were fit company for longer than that: I an artist, and she quite out of art and literature and refined living and everything else. There was no desertion, no misunderstanding, no police court or divorce court sensation for you moral chaps to lick your lips over at breakfast. We just said, Well, the money’s gone: weve had a good time that can never be taken from us; so kiss; part good friends; and she back to service, and I back to my studio and my Je
WALPOLE Quite a little poem, by George!
B. B. If you had been scientifically trained, Mr Dubedat, you would know how very seldom an actual case bears out a principle. In medical practice a man may die when, scientifically speaking, he ought to have lived. I have actually known a man die of a disease from which he was scientifically speaking, immune. But that does not affect the fundamental truth of science. In just the same way, in moral cases, a man’s behavior may be quite harmless and even beneficial, when he is morally behaving like a scoundrel. And he may do great harm when he is morally acting on the highest principles. But that does not affect the fundamental truth of morality.
SIR PATRICK And it doesnt affect the criminal law on the subject of bigamy.
LOUIS Oh bigamy! bigamy! bigamy! What a fascination anything co
WALPOLE Rot! You were married already when you married her; and that settles it.
LOUIS Does it! Why cant you t h i n k? How do you know she wasnt married already too?
LOUIS [ignoring their outcry] She was married to the steward of a liner. He cleared out and left her; and she thought, poor girl, that it was the law that if you hadnt heard of your husband for three years you might marry again. So as she was a thoroughly respectable girl and refused to have anything to say to me unless we were married I went through the ceremony to please her and to preserve her self-respect.
RIDGEON Did you tell her you were already married?
LOUIS Of course not. Dont you see that if she had known, she wouldnt have considered herself my wife? You dont seem to understand, somehow.
SIR PATRICK You let her risk imprisonment in her ignorance of the law?
LOUIS Well, I risked imprisonment for her sake. I could have been had up for it just as much as she. But when a man makes a sacrifice of that sort for a woman, he doesnt go and brag about it to her; at least, not if he’s a gentleman.
WALPOLE What a r e w e to do with this daisy?
LOUIS [impatiently] Oh, go and do whatever the devil you please. Put Mi
WALPOLE He’s got us.
SIR PATRICK [grimly] He has.
B. B. But is he to be allowed to defy the criminal law of the land?
SIR PATRICK The criminal law is no use to decent people. It only helps blackguards to blackmail their families. What are we family doctors doing half our time but conspiring with the family solicitor to keep some rascal out of jail and some family out of disgrace?
B. B. But at least it will punish him.
SIR PATRICK Oh, yes: itll punish him. Itll punish not only him but everybody co
LOUIS Would you mind turning your face a little more this way, Sir Patrick. [SIR PATRICK turns indignantly and glares at him]. Oh, thats too much.
SIR PATRICK Put down your foolish pencil, man; and think of your position. You can defy the laws made by men; but there are other laws to reckon with. Do know that youre going to die?
LOUIS We’re all going to die, arnt we?
WALPOLE We’re not all going to die in six months.
LOUIS How do you know?
This for B. B. is the last straw. He completely loses his temper and begins to walk excitedly about.
B. B. Upon my soul, I will not stand this. It is in questionable taste under any circumstances or in any company to harp on the subject of death; but it is a dastardly advantage to take of a medical man. [Thundering at Dubedat] I will not allow it, do you hear?
LOUIS Well, I didnt begin it: you chaps did. It’s always the way with the inartistic professions: when theyre beaten in argument they fall back on intimidation. I never knew a lawyer who didnt threaten to put me in prison sooner or later. I never knew a parson who didnt threaten me with damnation. And now you threaten me with death. With all your talk youve only one real trump in your hand, and thats Intimidation. Well, I’m not a coward; so it’s no use with me.
B. B. [advancing upon him] I’ll tell you what you are, sir.Youre a scoundrel.
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Maid in charge of the room where liqueurs and cakes are stored.