Plays: Lady Frederick, The Explorer, A Man of Honor Part 126

[_Interrupting him._] I want to have it out.

BASIL.

[_Bored._] We've been having it out twice a week for the last six months--and we've never got anywhere yet.

JENNY.

I'm not going to be always put upon, I'm your wife and I'm as good as you are.

BASIL.

[_With a thin smile._] Oh, my dear, if you're going in for women's rights, you may have my vote by all means. And you can plump for all the candidates at once if you choose.

JENNY.

You seem to think it's a joke.

BASIL.

[_Bitterly._] Oh no, I promise you I don't do that. It's lasted too long. And G.o.d knows where it'll end.... They say the first year of marriage is the worst; ours has been bad enough in all conscience.

JENNY.

[_Aggressively._] And I suppose you think it's my fault?

BASIL.

Don't you think we're both more or less to blame?

JENNY.

[_With a laugh._] Oh, I'm glad you acknowledge that you have something to do with it.

BASIL.

I tried to make you happy.

JENNY.

Well, you haven't succeeded very well. Did you think I was likely to be happy--when you leave me alone all day and half the night for your swell friends that I'm not good enough for?

BASIL.

That's not true. I hardly ever see any of my old friends.

JENNY.

Except Mrs. Murray, eh?

BASIL.

I've seen Mrs. Murray perhaps a dozen times in the last year.

JENNY.

Oh, you needn't tell me that. I know it. She's a lady, isn't she?

BASIL.

[_Ignoring the charge._] And my work takes me away from you. I can't always be down here. Think how bored you'd be.

JENNY.

A precious lot of good your work does. You can't earn enough money to keep us out of debt.

BASIL.

[_Good-humouredly._] We are in debt. But we share that very respectable condition with half the n.o.bility and gentry in the kingdom. We're neither of us good managers, and we've lived a bit beyond our means this year. But in future we'll be more economical.

JENNY.

[_Sullenly._] All the neighbours know that we've got bills with the tradesmen.

BASIL.

[_Acidly._] I'm sorry that you shouldn't have made so good a bargain as you expected when you married me.

JENNY.

I wonder what you do succeed in? Your book was very successful, wasn't it? You thought you were going to set the Thames on fire, and the book fell flat, flat, flat.

BASIL.

[_Recovering his good temper._] That is a fate which has befallen better books than mine.

JENNY.

It deserved it.

BASIL.

Oh, I didn't expect _you_ to appreciate it. It isn't given to all of us to write about wicked earls and beautiful d.u.c.h.esses.

JENNY.

Well, I wasn't the only one. The papers praised it, didn't they?

BASIL.