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it. You know, sometimes, when the bishop, who is the most priceless of fossils, lets off something more than usually out-of-date, the bird starts in my garden. Franklyn The bird? Haslam Oh yes. Theres a bird there that keeps on singing “Stick it or chuck it: stick it or chuck it”⁠—just like that⁠—for an hour on end in the spring. I wish my father had found some other shop for me. The parlor maid comes back. The Parlor Maid Any letters for the post, sir? Franklyn These. He proffers a basket of letters. She comes to the table and takes them. Haslam To the maid. Have you told Mr. Barnabas yet? The Parlor Maid Flinching a little. No, sir. Franklyn Told me what? Haslam She is going to leave you? Franklyn Indeed? I’m sorry. Is it our fault, Mr. Haslam? Haslam Not a bit. She is jolly well off here. The Parlor Maid Reddening. I have never denied it, sir: I couldn’t ask for a better place. But I have only one life to live; and I mayn’t get a second chance. Excuse me, sir; but the letters must go to catch the post. She goes out with the letters. The two brothers look inquiringly at Haslam. Haslam Silly girl! Going to marry a village woodman and live in a hovel with him and a lot of kids tumbling over one another, just because the fellow has poetic-looking eyes and a moustache. Conrad Demurring. She said it was because she had only one life. Haslam Same thing, poor girl! The fellow persuaded her to chuck it; and when she marries him she’ll have to stick it. Rotten state of things, I call it. Conrad You see, she hasn’t time to find out what life really means. She has to die before she knows. Haslam Agreeably. That’s it. Franklyn She hasn’t time to form a well-instructed conscience. Haslam Still more cheerfully. Quite. Franklyn It goes deeper. She hasn’t time to form a genuine conscience at all. Some romantic points of honor and a few conventions. A world without conscience: that is the horror of our condition. Haslam Beaming. Simply fatuous. Rising. Well, I suppose I’d better be going. It’s most awfully good of you to put up with my calling. Conrad In his former low ghostly tone. You needn’t go, you know, if you are really interested. Haslam Fed up. Well, I’m afraid I ought to⁠—I really must get back⁠—I have something to do in the⁠— Franklyn Smiling benignly and rising to proffer his hand. Goodbye. Conrad Gruffly, giving him up as a bad job. Goodbye. Haslam Goodbye. Sorry⁠—er⁠— As the rector moves to shake hands with Franklyn, feeling that he is making a frightful mess of his departure, a vigorous sunburnt young lady with hazel hair cut to the level of her neck, like an Italian youth in a Gozzoli picture, comes in impetuously. She seems to have nothing on but her short skirt, her blouse, her stockings, and a pair of Norwegian shoes: in short, she is a Simple-Lifer. The Simple-Lifer Swooping on Conrad and kissing him. Hallo, Nunk. You’re before your time. Conrad Behave yourself. Theres a visitor. She turns quickly and sees the rector. She instinctively switches at her Gozzoli fringe with her fingers, but gives it up as hopeless. Franklyn Mr. Haslam, our new rector. To Haslam. My daughter Cynthia. Conrad Usually called Savvy, short for Savage. Savvy I usually call Mr. Haslam Bill, short for William. She strolls to the hearthrug, and surveys them calmly from that commanding position. Franklyn You know him? Savvy Rather. Sit down, Bill. Franklyn Mr. Haslam is going, Savvy. He has an engagement. Savvy I know. I’m the engagement. Conrad In that case, would you mind taking him into the garden while I talk to your father? Savvy To Haslam. Tennis? Haslam Rather! Savvy Come on. She dances out. He runs boyishly after her. Franklyn Leaving his table and beginning to walk up and down the room discontentedly. Savvy’s manners jar on me. They would have horrified her grandmother. Conrad Obstinately. They are happier manners than Mother’s manners. Franklyn Yes: they are franker, wholesomer, better in a hundred ways. And yet I squirm at them. I cannot get it out of my head that Mother was a well-mannered woman, and that Savvy has no manners at all. Conrad There wasn’t any pleasure in Mother’s fine manners. That makes a biological difference. Franklyn But there was beauty in Mother’s manners, grace in them, style in them: above all, decision in them. Savvy is such a cub. Conrad So she ought to be, at her age. Franklyn There it comes again! Her age! her age! Conrad You want her to be fully grown at eighteen. You want to force her into a stuck-up, artificial, premature self-possession before she has any self to possess. You just let her alone: she is right enough for her years. Franklyn I have let her alone; and look at the result! Like all the other young people who have been let alone, she becomes a Socialist. That is, she becomes hopelessly demoralized. Conrad Well, aren’t you a Socialist? Franklyn Yes; but that is not the same thing. You and I were brought up in the old bourgeois morality. We were taught bourgeois manners and bourgeois points of honor. Bourgeois manners may be snobbish manners: there may be no pleasure in them, as you say; but they are better than no manners. Many bourgeois points of honor may be false; but at least they exist. The women know what to expect and what is expected of them. Savvy doesn’t. She is a Bolshevist and nothing else. She has to improvise her manners and her conduct as she goes along. It’s often charming, no doubt; but sometimes she puts her foot in it frightfully; and then I feel that she is blaming me for not teaching her better. Conrad Well, you have something better to teach her now, at all events. Franklyn Yes: but it is too late. She doesn’t trust me now. She doesn’t talk about such things to me. She