take it.] Take care of your fingers: theyre rather dodgy
things, those chairs. [She goes across to the chair with the books on it; pitches them into the hammock; and brings the chair forward with one swing.] PRAED [Who has just unfolded his chair.] Oh, now d o let me take that hard chair. I like hard chairs.
VIVIE So do I. Sit down, Mr Praed. [This invitation she gives with genial peremptoriness, his anxiety to please her clearly striking her as a sign of weakness of character on his part. But he does not immediately obey.]
PRAED
By the way, though, hadnt we better go to the station to meet your
mother? VTVIE [Coolly.] Why? She knows the way. PRAED [Disconcerted.] Er?I suppose she does. [He sits down.] VTVIE
Do you know, you are just like what I expected. I hope you are disposed
to be friends with me. PRAED [Again beaming.] Thank you, my dea r Miss Warren: thank you. Dear me! I'm glad your mother hasnt spoilt you!
4. A decorative clasp or hook on a girdle or belt, to which a number of short chains are attached bearing household implements or ornaments.
.
174 8 / BERNARD SHAW
VIVIE How?
PRAED
Well, in making you too conventional. You know, my dear Miss War
ren, I am a born anarchist. I hate authority. It spoils the relations between
parent and child: even between mother and daughter. Now I was always
afraid that your mother would strain her authority to make you very con
ventional. It's such a relief to find that she hasnt.
VIVIE
Oh! have I been behaving unconventionally?
PRAED
Oh no; oh dear no. At least not conventionally unconventionally, you understand. [She nods and sits down. He goes on, with a cordial outburst. ] But it was so charming of you to say that you were disposed to be friends
with me! You modern young ladies are splendid: perfectly splendid! VIVIE [Dubiously.] Eh? [Watching him with dawning disappointment as to the quality of his brains and character.]
PRAED
When I was your age, young men and women were afraid of each
other: there was no good fellowship. Nothing real. Only gallantry copied out
of novels, and as vulgar and affected as it could be. Maidenly reserve! gen
tlemanly chivalry! always saying no when you meant yes! simple purgatory
for shy and sincere souls.
VIVIE
Yes, I imagine there must have been a frightful waste of time. Especially
women's time.
PRAED
Oh, waste of life, waste of everything. But things are improving. Do
you know, I have been in a positive state of excitement about meeting you
ever since your magnificent achievements at Cambridge: a thing unheard
of in my day. It was perfectly splendid, you tieing with the third wrangler.'
Just the right place, you know. The first wrangler is always a dreamy, morbid
fellow, in whom the thing is pushed to the length of a disease.
VIVIE
It doesnt pay. I wouldnt do it again for the same money. PRAED [Aghast.] The same money! VIVIE I did it for .50.
PRAED
Fifty pounds!
VIVIE Yes. Fifty pounds. Perhaps you dont know how it was. Mrs. Latham, my tutor at Newnham,6 told my mother that I could distinguish myself in the mathematical tripos if I went in for it in earnest. The papers were full just then of Phillipa Summers beating the senior wrangler.7 You remember
