Mrs. Warren’s Profession

not what it ought to be. I’ll tell you all about it if you like. I don’t know whether you’ve found in travelling how hard it is to find a really comfortable private hotel. Vivie Sickened, averting her face. Yes: go on. Crofts Well, that’s all it is. Your mother has got a genius for managing such things. We’ve got two in Brussels, one in Berlin, one in Vienna, and two in Budapest. Of course there are others besides ourselves in it; but we hold most of the capital; and your mother’s indispensable as managing director. You’ve noticed, I daresay, that she travels a good deal. But you see you can’t mention such things in society. Once let out the word hotel and everybody says you keep a public-house. You wouldn’t like people to say that of your mother, would you? That’s why we’re so reserved about it. By the by, you’ll keep it to yourself, won’t you? Since it’s been a secret so long, it had better remain so. Vivie And this is the business you invite me to join you in? Crofts Oh, no. My wife shan’t be troubled with business. You’ll not be in it more than you’ve always been. Vivie I always been! What do you mean? Crofts Only that you’ve always lived on it. It paid for your education and the dress you have on your back. Don’t turn up your nose at business, Miss Vivie: where would your Newnhams and Girtons be without it? Vivie Rising, almost beside herself. Take care. I know what this business is. Crofts Starting, with a suppressed oath. Who told you? Vivie Your partner⁠—my mother. Crofts Black with rage. The old⁠—Vivie looks quickly at him. He swallows the epithet and stands for a moment swearing and raging foully to himself. But he knows that his cue is to be sympathetic. He takes refuge in generous indignation. She ought to have had more consideration for you. I’d never have told you. Vivie I think you would probably have told me when we were married: it would have been a convenient weapon to break me in with. Crofts Quite sincerely. I never intended that. On my word as a gentleman I didn’t. Vivie wonders at him. Her sense of the irony of his protest cools and braces her. She replies with contemptuous self-possession. Vivie It does not matter. I suppose you understand that when we leave here today our acquaintance ceases. Crofts Why? Is it for helping your mother? Vivie My mother was a very poor woman who had no reasonable choice but to do as she did. You were a rich gentleman; and you did the same for the sake of thirty-five percent. You are a pretty common sort of scoundrel, I think. That is my opinion of you. Crofts After a stare⁠—not at all displeased, and much more at his ease on these frank terms than on their former ceremonious ones. Ha, ha, ha, ha! Go it, little missie, go it: it doesn’t hurt me and it amuses you. Why the devil shouldn’t I invest my money that way? I take the interest on my capital like other people: I hope you don’t think I dirty my own hands with the work. Come: you wouldn’t refuse the acquaintance of my mother’s cousin the Duke of Belgravia, because some of the rents he gets are earned in queer ways. You wouldn’t cut the Archbishop of Canterbury, I suppose, because the Ecclesiastical Commissioners have a few publicans and sinners among their tenants? Do you remember your Crofts scholarship at Newnham? Well, that was founded by my brother the M.P. He gets his twenty-two percent out of a factory with six hundred girls in it, and not one of them getting wages enough to live on. How d’ye suppose they manage? Ask your mother. And do you expect me to turn my back on thirty-five percent when all the rest are pocketing what they can, like sensible men? No such fool! If you’re going to pick and choose your acquaintances on moral principles, you’d better clear out of this country, unless you want to cut yourself out of all decent society. Vivie Conscience stricken. You might go on to point out that I myself never asked where the money I spent came from. I believe I am just as bad as you. Crofts Greatly reassured. Of course you are; and a very good thing too! What harm does it do after all? Rallying her jocularly. So you don’t think me such a scoundrel now you come to think it over. Eh? Vivie I have shared profits with you; and I admitted you just now to the familiarity of knowing what I think of you. Crofts With serious friendliness. To be sure you did. You won’t find me a bad sort: I don’t go in for being superfine intellectually; but I’ve plenty of honest human feeling; and the old Crofts breed comes out in a sort of instinctive hatred of anything low, in which I’m sure you’ll sympathize with me. Believe me, Miss Vivie, the world isn’t such a bad place as the croakers make out. So long as you don’t fly openly in the face of society, society doesn’t ask any inconvenient questions; and it makes precious short work of the cads who do. There are no secrets better kept than the secrets that everybody guesses. In the society I can introduce you to, no lady or gentleman would so far forget themselves as to discuss my business affairs or your mother’s. No man can offer you a safer position. Vivie Studying him curiously. I suppose you really think you’re getting on famously with me. Crofts Well, I hope I may flatter myself that you think better of me than you did at first. Vivie Quietly. I hardly find you worth thinking about at all now. She rises and turns towards the gate, pausing on her way to contemplate him and say almost gently, but with intense