Mrs. Warren’s Profession

Didn’t you expect us? Vivie No. Praed Now, goodness me, I hope I’ve not mistaken the day. That would be just like me, you know. Your mother arranged that she was to come down from London and that I was to come over from Horsham to be introduced to you. Vivie Not at all pleased. Did she? H’m! My mother has rather a trick of taking me by surprise⁠—to see how I behave myself while she’s away, I suppose. I fancy I shall take my mother very much by surprise one of these days, if she makes arrangements that concern me without consulting me beforehand. She hasn’t come. Praed Embarrassed. I’m really very sorry. Vivie Throwing off her displeasure. It’s not your fault, Mr. Praed, is it? And I’m very glad you’ve come. You are the only one of my mother’s friends I have ever asked her to bring to see me. Praed Relieved and delighted. Oh, now this is really very good of you, Miss Warren! Vivie Will you come indoors; or would you rather sit out here and talk? Praed It will be nicer out here, don’t you think? Vivie Then I’ll go and get you a chair. She goes to the porch for a garden chair. Praed Following her. Oh, pray, pray! Allow me. He lays hands on the chair. Vivie Letting him take it. Take care of your fingers; they’re 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 do let me take that hard chair. I like hard chairs. Vivie So do I. Sit down, Mr. Praed. This invitation she gives with a 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, hadn’t we better go to the station to meet your mother? Vivie Coolly. Why? She knows the way. Praed hesitates, and then sits down in the garden chair, rather disconcerted. 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 dear Miss Warren; thank you. Dear me! I’m so glad your mother hasn’t spoilt you! Vivie How? Praed Well, in making you too conventional. You know, my dear Miss Warren, 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 conventional. It’s such a relief to find that she hasn’t. 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! gentlemanly 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, your 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 doesn’t pay. I wouldn’t do it again for the same money. Praed Aghast. The same money! Vivie I did it for fifty pounds. Perhaps you don’t know how it was. Mrs. Latham, my tutor at Newnham, 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—you remember about it; and nothing would please my mother but that I should do the same thing. I said flatly that it was not worth my while to face the grind since I was not going in for teaching; but I offered to try for fourth wrangler or thereabouts for fifty pounds. She closed with me at that, after a little grumbling; and I was better than my bargain. But I wouldn’t do it again for that. Two hundred pounds would have been nearer the mark. Praed Much damped. Lord bless me! That’s a very practical way of looking at it. Vivie Did you expect to find me an unpractical person? Praed No, no. But surely it’s practical to consider not only the work these honors cost, but also the culture they bring. Vivie Culture! My dear Mr. Praed: do you know what the mathematical tripos means? It means grind, grind, grind for six to eight hours a day at mathematics, and nothing but mathematics. I’m supposed to know something about science; but I know nothing except the mathematics it involves. I can make calculations for engineers, electricians, insurance companies, and so on; but I know next to nothing about engineering or electricity or insurance. I don’t even know arithmetic well. Outside mathematics, lawn-tennis, eating, sleeping, cycling, and walking, I’m a more ignorant barbarian than any woman could possibly be who hadn’t gone in for the tripos. Praed Revolted. What a monstrous, wicked, rascally system! I knew it! I felt at once that it meant