A BILL OF DIVORCEMENT

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

NOVELS:

REGIMENT OF WOMEN
FIRST THE BLADE
LEGEND

LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN

A BILL OF
DIVORCEMENT

A PLAY IN THREE ACTS
BY
CLEMENCE DANE

Copyright: London, William Heinemann, 1921.

This play was produced on Monday, March 14th, 1921, at the St. Martin’s Theatre, with the following cast:

THE PEOPLE OF THE PLAY

In the order of their appearance.

Margaret Fairfield.
Miss Hester Fairfield.
Sydney Fairfield.
Bassett.
Gray Meredith.
Kit Pumphrey.
Hilary Fairfield.
Dr. Alliot.
The Christopher.

Scene.—A small house in the country. The action passes on Christmas Day, 1933. The audience is asked to imagine that the recommendations of the Majority Report of the Royal Commission on Divorce v. Matrimonial Causes have become the law of the land.

[ACT I].—The Hall. Morning.

[ACT II].—The Drawing Room. Early Afternoon.

[ACT III].—The Hall. Late Afternoon.

ACT I.

The curtain rises on the hall, obviously used as the common-room of a country house. On the right (of the audience) is the outer door and a staircase that runs down from an upper landing towards the middle of the room, half hiding what has once been a separate smaller room with a baize door at the back. In the corner a French window opens on to a snowbound garden. On the left, facing the entrance, a log fire is blazing. Staircase, pictures, grandfather clock, etc., are wreathed with holly and mistletoe. At the breakfast table, which is laid for three and littered with paper and string, sit Miss Hester Fairfield and Margaret Fairfield, her niece by marriage. The third chair has two or three parcels piled up on it.

Hester Fairfield is one of those twitching, high-minded, elderly ladies in black, who keep a grievance as they might keep a pet dog—as soon as it dies they replace it by another. The grievance of the moment seems to be the empty third chair, and Margaret Fairfield is, as usual, on the defensive. Such a little, pretty, helpless-looking woman as Margaret has generally half a dozen big sons and a husband to bully; but Margaret has only a daughter, and her way of looking at even the chair on which that daughter ought to be sitting, is the way of a child whose doll has suddenly come to life. For the rest, she is so youthfully anxious and simple and charming that the streak of grey in her hair puzzles you. You wonder what trouble has fingered it. It does not occur to you that she is quite thirty-five.

Margaret. [Apologising] Yes, she is late.

Miss Fairfield. As usual!

Margaret. Oh, well, she was dancing till three. I hadn’t the heart to wake her.

Miss Fairfield. Till three, was she? Who brought her home?

Margaret. Kit, of course.

Miss Fairfield. Three o’clock on Christmas morning! I wonder what the Rector said to that.

Margaret. Oh, Kit’s on holiday.

Miss Fairfield. I heard you tell her myself to be in by twelve. If anything could make me approve of this marriage of yours—

Margaret. Oh, don’t begin it again, Auntie!

Miss Fairfield.—it’s that the child will have a strong hand over her at last. A step-father’s better than nothing—if you can call him a step-father when her father’s still alive.

Margaret. Oh, don’t!

Miss Fairfield. What’s the use of saying “don’t”? He is alive. You can’t get away from that.

Margaret. Aunt Hester—please!

Miss Fairfield. Well, I’m only telling you—if it’s got to be, I’m not sorry it’s Gray Meredith.

Margaret. [Smiling] Yes, Sydney knows just how far she may go with Gray.

Miss Fairfield. I see nothing to laugh at in that.

Margaret. It’s so funny to think how circumspect you all are with him. He’s the one person I’ve always felt perfectly safe with. I’d ask anything of Gray.

Miss Fairfield. [Grimly] You always have, my dear!

Margaret. I don’t know why you should be unkind to me on Christmas morning.

Miss Fairfield. [With a sort of grudging affection] I suppose it’s because I’ve only got another week to be unkind to you in.

Margaret. [Restlessly] Oh, I wish you didn’t hate it so.

Miss Fairfield. My dear, when you see a person you care for, and she your own nephew’s wife, on the brink of deadly sin—

Margaret. Must we begin it again?

Miss Fairfield. I do my duty. If you’d done yours your daughter wouldn’t be late for breakfast, and I shouldn’t be given the opportunity.

Margaret. Perhaps I had better call her.

Miss Fairfield. Everything getting cold—and so disrespectful! She ought to be taught.

Margaret. [Rising with a sigh] You’re quite right. [Calling at the foot of the stairs] Sydney, darling, shall I bring you up your coffee?

Sydney’s Voice. [Answering] It’s all right, Mother! I’m coming.

Miss Fairfield. And I suppose that’s all you’ll say.

Sydney comes out of her room. She is physically a bigger, fairer edition of Margaret, but there the likeness ends. Her manner is brisk and decided. She is very sure of herself, but when she loses her temper, as she often does, she loses her aplomb and reveals the schoolgirl. Her attitude to the world is that of justice, untempered, except where her mother is in question, by mercy. But she is very fond of her mother.

Sydney. [Running down the stairs] Merry Christmas, everyone! I’m not late, am I? Morning, Auntie! What, no post?

Margaret. It gets later every year.

Miss Fairfield. I’m very much obliged to you, Sydney, for the—card-case.

Sydney. [Undoing her parcels] It’s a cigarette case, Auntie dear. You see, I thought if you gave me a prayer-book again we might do a deal. Ah, I thought so! Thanks most awfully. It’s sweet of you. Shall we?

Miss Fairfield. What?

Sydney. Swop.

Margaret. Sydney, dear, that’s rather rude.

Sydney. [Swiftly] Well, Mother, I hate being hinted at.

Margaret. [Bewildered] Hint? What hint?

Sydney. Oh, Mother, you’re such a lamb. You never see anything. [To Miss Fairfield] I’m sorry, Auntie, but I’m seventeen, and I’ve left school, and I am not going to church to-day, or any day any more ever, except to chaperon Mother and Gray next week, bless ’em!

Miss Fairfield. I do think, Margaret, she ought at least to call him Uncle.

Margaret. Aren’t you coming with us to-day, darling? Christmas Day?

Sydney. Sorry, Mother. It’s against my principles. I refuse to kneel down and say I’m a miserable sinner. I’m not miserable and I’m not a sinner, and I cannot tell a lie to please any old—prayer-book. Besides, I’m expecting Kit.

Miss Fairfield. You’ll find that Kit takes his mother to church. She hasn’t lost all her influence—

Sydney. [Darkly] She’ll be finding herself up against me soon.

Margaret. [Like a schoolgirl] Oh, Sydney, has he—?

Sydney. He’s trying his hardest to, but I like to sort of spread my jam.

Margaret. Then—then—?

Sydney. I’m not actually engaged, if you mean that— [Watching their faces mischievously] but I’m going to be.

Miss Fairfield. Engaged at seventeen! Preposterous!

Sydney. [Instantly] Mother was married at seventeen.

Margaret. That was the war.

Sydney. I don’t see what that’s got to do with it.

Margaret. [Timidly] Sydney—at seventeen, one doesn’t know enough—

Sydney. One doesn’t know the same things, I dare say.

Margaret. One doesn’t know anything at all.

Sydney. Yes, but think of the hopeless sort of world you were seventeen in—even you. As for poor Auntie, as far as knowing things goes—

Margaret. Sydney, my dear, be good!

Sydney. I am being good. I’m returning hint for hint.

Miss Fairfield. [Ruffling] Is this the way you let your daughter speak to me, Margaret?

Sydney. [Closing with her] You see, she doesn’t enjoy being hinted at either.

Margaret. [Between the upper and the nether mill-stone] I don’t know what you mean, Sydney, but don’t!

Sydney. I mean that I’m not going to let Aunt Hester interfere in my affairs like she does in yours. That’s what I mean.

Miss Fairfield. These are the manners they teach you at your fine school, I suppose!

Sydney. Never mind, Auntie, I’ve had my lessons in the holidays too. You needn’t think I haven’t watched the life you’ve led Mother over this divorce business.

Margaret. [Distressed at the discussion] Sydney! Sydney!

Sydney. [Remorselessly] Well, hasn’t she? What prevented you from marrying Gray ages ago? Father’s been out of his mind long enough, poor man! You knew you were free to be free. You knew you were making Gray miserable and yourself miserable—and yet, though that divorce law has been in force for years, it’s taken you all this time to fight your scruples. At least, you call them scruples! What you really mean is Aunt Hester and her prayer book. And now, when you have at last consented to give yourself a chance of being happy—when it’s Christmas Day and you’re going to be married at New Year—still you let Aunt Hester sit at your own breakfast table and insult you with talk about deadly sin. It’s no use pretending you didn’t Auntie, because Mother left my door open and I heard you.

Margaret. [With a certain dignity] Sydney, I can take care of myself.

Sydney. [Oblivious of it] Take care of yourself! As if everybody didn’t ride rough-shod over you when I’m not there.

Margaret. Yes, but my pet, you musn’t break out like this. Of course your aunt knows you don’t really mean to be rude—

Sydney. I do mean to be rude to her when she’s rude to you.

Margaret. My dear, you quite misunderstand your aunt.

Sydney. Oh, no, I don’t, Mother! [Margaret shrugs her shoulders helplessly and sits down on the sofa to the left of the fireplace.]

Miss Fairfield. [Rising] I’m afraid you’ll have to go to church without me, Margaret. I’m thoroughly upset. You’ve brought up your daughter to ignore me, and I know why. I’m the wrong side of the family. I’m the one person in this house who remembers poor Hilary. I shall read the service in the drawing-room. [She goes out.]

Sydney. [Looking after her] She owes me something. She’s been dying for an excuse, with that cold. [She turns to the sofa and says more gently] What’s the use of crying, Mother? If Gray finds out there’ll be a row, and then Aunt Hester’ll be sorry she ever was born.

Margaret. It isn’t that. You get so excited, Sydney! You remind me—your father was so excitable. I don’t like to see it.

Sydney. I’m not really. I needn’t let myself go if I don’t want to.

Margaret. You musn’t get impatient with your aunt. She can’t get accustomed to the new ways, that’s all. I—I can’t myself, sometimes. [Restlessly] I hope I’m doing right.

Sydney. Oh, I do think it’s morbid to have a conscience. If Father had been dead fifteen years, would you say, “I hope I’m doing right”? And he is dead. His mind’s dead. You know you’ve done all you can. And you’re frightfully in love with Gray—

Margaret. [Flushing] Don’t, Sydney!

Sydney. Well, you are, and so he is with you. So what’s the worry about? Aunt Hester! What people like Aunt Hester choose to think! I call it morbid.

Margaret. [Whimsically] I suppose I haven’t brought you up properly. Your aunt’s quite right!

Sydney. Yes. That’s what it always comes back to. “Your aunt’s quite right!” I can argue with you by the hour—

Margaret. [Hastily] Oh, not this morning, darling, will you?

Sydney.—and Gray can argue with you by the hour—

Margaret. [Smiling] Ah, but he never does.

Sydney.—and you pretend to agree with us; but underneath your common sense, your mind’s really thinking—“Your aunt’s quite right!”

Margaret. She stands for the old ways, Sydney.

Sydney. She stands for Noah and the flood. She’d no business to go dragging up Father and the divorce on Christmas morning to upset you.

Margaret. It wasn’t your aunt.

Sydney. Then it was me, I suppose! “If I could only control my tongue and my temper,” and all the rest of it!

Margaret. [Quietly] No, it was about Kit.

Sydney. Kit? Oh, that’s all right, Mother. Don’t you worry about me and Kit.

Margaret. I do.

Sydney. You needn’t.

Margaret. [Shyly] You see, I thought I was in love at seventeen, too.

Sydney. Oh, but I quite know what I’m doing.

Margaret. And now I know I didn’t know much about it. I don’t want you to be—rushed.

Sydney. Nobody could make me do what I didn’t want to do.

Margaret. [Forgetting Sydney] It was nobody’s fault. It was the war— [She sits, dreaming.]

Sydney. It’s extraordinary to me—whenever you middle-aged people want to excuse yourselves for anything you’ve done that you know you oughtn’t to have done, you say it was the war. How could a war make you get married if you didn’t want to?

Margaret. [Groping for words] It was the feel in the air. They say the smell of blood sends horses crazy. That was the feel. One did mad things. Hilary—your father—he was going out—the trenches—to be hurt. And he was so fond of me he frightened me. I was so sorry. I thought I cared. Can’t you understand?

Sydney. No. Either you care or you don’t.

Margaret. [Passionately] How can you know until it happens to you? How was I to know there was more to it than keeping house and looking after Hilary—and you? How was I to know?

Sydney. [Doubtfully] Is there so much more to it?

Margaret. Yes.

Sydney. I don’t believe there is for some people. Why it’s just what I want—to look after Kit and a house of my own, and—oh, at least half a dozen kids.

Margaret. [Uncomfortably] Sydney, dear!

Sydney. Oh, Kit’s as keen as I am on eugenics. He’s doing a paper for his debating society.

Margaret. Well, I found you quite enough to manage.

Sydney. [Leaning over the back of the sofa] I believe you were scared of me when I was little— [Margaret nods] and even now—

Margaret. [Quickly] What?

Sydney. [Quite good humoured about it] Well, if you had to choose between me and Gray, it wouldn’t be Gray who’d lose you.

Margaret. [Confronted with the idea] I hope I’d do what’s right.

Sydney. [Airily] There you are!

Margaret. [As it goes home] It’s not true. You’ve no right to make me out a heartless mother. But—

Sydney. [Her arm round her mother’s neck] Well—heartless Mother?

Margaret. [Clutching at the arm] Oh, Sydney—what should I do if Gray—if Gray—

Sydney. It’s all right, Mother! [There is the sound of a motor driving up.] There is Gray.

Margaret. [Jumping up hurriedly] Oh, and I’m not dressed. Say I’ll be down in a minute. [She runs upstairs.]

Sydney. You’ve plenty of time. The bells haven’t begun yet.

Margaret. [From the gallery] Tell Bassett to clear away.

Sydney rings the bell. The elderly maid enters through the baize door.

Bassett. Yes, Miss?

Sydney. You can clear, Bassett!

While she is speaking Gray Meredith comes in through the hall door. He is about forty, tall, dark and quiet, very sure of himself and quite indifferent to the effect he makes on other people. As he is a man who never has room in his head for more than one idea at a time, and as for the last five years that idea has been Margaret, the rest of the world doesn’t get much out of him. But mention her and he behaves exactly like a fire being poked.

Gray. [Putting down a box he carries] Where’s your mother?

Sydney. [Folding her hands] Good morning, dear Sydney! A merry Christmas to you, and so many thanks for the tie that, with the help of your devoted aunt, you so thoughtfully—

Gray. Stop it, there’s a good child! I haven’t missed her, have I?

Sydney. Pray accept in return as a small token of esteem and total dependency—

Gray. I asked you if your mother had started.

Sydney. [In her natural voice] It’s true, you know. You simply daren’t cope with me yet.

Gray. [Twinkling in spite of himself] Hm! A time will come—

Sydney. Wouldn’t it warm the cockles of Aunt Hester’s heart to hear you! What are cockles, Gray? Gray, she says I ought to call you Uncle! Gray, d’you think you have brought me what I think you have for a Christmas present?

Gray. You’d better go and look. It’s in the motor with Kit.

Sydney. It?

Gray. He.

Sydney. By Viscount out of Vixen?

Gray. Really, Sydney!

Sydney. Dear Uncle Hester!

Gray. Yes, but Sydney—?

Sydney. [At the door] Oh, didn’t I tell you? Mother says she’ll be down in a minute. [She lets in the sound of the church bells as she goes out.]

Gray walks about the room, then, going to the foot of the staircase, he calls softly.

Gray. Margaret! [He waits a moment; then he calls again] Margaret!

He listens, takes another turn about the room, then, coming back to the staircase, stands, leaning against the foot of the balusters. Margaret comes softly down the stairs, and bending over, puts her hands on his shoulders.

Margaret. A merry Christmas!

Gray. [Turning round and kissing her] And a happy New Year!

Margaret. It will be—oh, it will be!

Gray. I almost think it will sometimes. [Holding her at arms’ length] New frock?

Margaret. Like it?

Gray. Oh, I’ve seen it already.

Margaret. Why, it’s the first time I’ve put it on.

Gray. [Untying the box on the table as he speaks] Sydney carted it along with her last week when we went to choose—this.

Margaret. [Like a child with a new toy] For me, Gray?

Gray. Looks like it.

Margaret. Oh, I hope you haven’t been extravagant.

Gray. [Opening the lid] Well, Sydney said—

Margaret. Silver fox! Oh, my dear, you shouldn’t.

Gray. Put ’em on. Sydney’s quite a wise child.

Margaret. [Luxuriously] Oh, I do love being spoiled.

Gray. You haven’t had so much of it, have you, Meg?

Margaret. [With a complete change of manner] Don’t!

Gray. What?

Margaret. Don’t call me Meg.

Gray. Why not?

Margaret. You never have before.

Gray. Don’t you see, I want a name for you that no-one else uses.

Margaret. [Close to him] Yes, yes, that no-one else has ever used. Not Meg. Not Margaret. Make a name of your own for me—new—new.

Gray. Well, you’re getting one new name pretty soon, anyhow.

Margaret. Yes. New year—new name—new life. [In his arms] Oh, Gray, is thirty-five very old?

Gray. Not when you say it.

Margaret. Oh, Gray, we’ve time for everything still?

Gray. Time for everything. [He laughs] Except church, my child! Do you really insist on going?

Margaret. Aunt Hester will be horrified if I don’t. Besides— [She comes back to the table and begins putting the papers together.]

Gray. What?

Margaret. I suppose you’ll think me a fool—

Gray. Shall I?

Margaret. Oh, Gray, for the first time in my life I’m happy. I want to say—

Gray. What does she want to say?

Margaret. “Humble and hearty thanks—”

Sydney runs in with a puppy in her arms. She is followed by Kit. Kit is a good-looking, fair-haired boy who may be twenty-two, but is nevertheless much younger than Sydney, whom he takes as seriously as he takes everything else in life. It is part of her charm for him that he finds it a little difficult to keep up with her.

Sydney. Mother! Mother! Look what Gray’s brought me!

Margaret. Oh, Sydney, your aunt isn’t fond of dogs. Merry Christmas, Kit!

Kit. Merry Christmas, Mrs. Fairfield!

Sydney. Yes, but isn’t he an angel? And Kit’s given me a collar for him. [She goes up to Gray] You know, Gray, it’s so sweet of you that in return I’ll—

Gray. Well?

Sydney. [Conspiratorially] Make Kit late for church if you like.

Gray. [Putting himself in her hands] I did promise him a lift.

Sydney. [Settling it] He can cut across the fields. [Aloud] Kit, what about a bone for the angel? You might go and make love to Bassett. [She puts the dog into his arms. They stroll off together into the inner room.]

Kit. [Earnestly, as he goes out through the baize door] He ought to be kept to biscuits.

Sydney. [Calling to him] Just one to gnaw. [Then, over her shoulder] Mother, the bells have been going quite a while.

Margaret. [To Gray] Listen, don’t you love them?

Gray. Church bells?

Margaret. Wedding bells.

Gray. Margaret, you’ve stepped straight out of a Trollope novel.

Margaret. [Flushing] I suppose you think I’m sentimental.

Gray. No, but you’re pure nineteenth century.

Margaret. I’m not. [Telephone bell rings] Oh!

Gray. There goes the twentieth. Don’t you see how it makes you jump?

Sydney has gone to the telephone.

Sydney. Hullo! Hullo!... You rang me up. [She hangs up the receiver] “Sorry you have been trubbled!” And it’s sure to be someone trying to get on.

Gray. On Christmas morning? Hardly! I say, come along! The bells have stopped.

Margaret. [In a strange voice] Yes, they stopped when that other bell rang.

Sydney. Why, Mother, what’s the matter?

Margaret. [Blindly] They stopped.

Sydney. I told you, darling, you’re late.

Margaret. Give me my furs. I’m cold. [Gray helps her on with them.]

Sydney. [Proud of her] They are lovely.

Margaret. [At the door, wistfully] It isn’t too good to be true, is it?

Gray. The furs?

Margaret. Everything! You—oh, what a fool I am! [You hear Gray’s laugh answering hers as they go out together, and the sound of the motor driving away.]

Sydney. [Subsiding on to the sofa, to Kit, who has come in as the others go] I thought they’d never get off. Mother has a way of standing around and gently fussing—I tell you I’ll be glad when next week’s over.

Kit. So’ll I. I haven’t had a look in lately.

Sydney. [With an intimate glance] Not last night? But it has been a job, running Mother. I’m bridesmaid and best man and family lawyer and Juliet’s nurse all rolled into one—and a sort of lightning conductor for Aunt Hester into the bargain. That’s why I’ve had so little time for you. It’s quite true what Gray was saying just now—Mother is nineteenth century. She’s sweet and helpless, but she’s obstinate too. My word, the time she took making up her mind to get that divorce!

Kit. It’s just about that that I’ve been wanting to talk to you. You see—

Sydney. Well?

Kit. You see—

Sydney. Hurry up, old thing!

Kit. Well, you see, when I got home last night the governor was sitting up for me.

Sydney. He would be.

Kit. And in the course of the row—you came in to it.

Sydney. Oh, but he likes me.

Kit. Yes, he was quite soothed when I said we were engaged.

Sydney. Liar!

Kit. [Serenely] Oh, well—

Sydney. [She finds his chuckle infectious] What did he say?

Kit. Oh, lots of rot, of course, about being too young. But he was quite bucked really until—

Sydney. Well?

Kit. Well, I was a fool. I said something, quite by chance, about your father. Then the fur began to fly. You see, it seems he thought your mother was a widow—

Sydney. [Ruffling up] What’s it got to do with him?

Kit. Well, you see—

Sydney. If you’d only make me see instead of you-seeing me all the time.

Kit. I’m afraid of hurting your feelings.

Sydney. I’m not nineteenth century.

Kit. [Desperately] Well, my people are.

Sydney. Well?

Kit. That’s the trouble—my people are! Father promptly began about not seeing his way to—

Sydney. To what, Kit?

Kit. To—to marrying them.

Sydney. But I’ve never heard of anything so crazy.

Kit. Of course, you know, there’s nothing to worry about. There are heaps of clergymen who will.

Sydney. My dear boy, if Mother isn’t married in her own parish church she’ll think she’s living in sin.

Kit. Well, there it is!

Sydney. But look here, the old rector knew all about it. Do you mean to say that a new man can come into our parish and insult Mother just because his beastly conscience doesn’t work the same way the old rector’s did? The divorce is perfectly legal.

Kit. [In great discomfort] Yes, Father knows all that. [Hopefully] Of course, I don’t see myself why a registry office—

Sydney. If it were me I’d prefer it. Much less fuss. But Mother wouldn’t.

Kit. But she ought to see—

Sydney. But she won’t. It’s no use reckoning on what people ought to be. You’ve got to deal with them as they are.

Kit. [Guiltily] Well, I’m awfully sorry.

Sydney. It’s no use being sorry. We’ve got to do something.

Kit. [Hopelessly] When once the old man gets an idea into his head—

Sydney. He’d better not let it out in front of Mother. Gray’d half kill him if he did. And I tell you this, Kit, what Gray leaves I’ll account for, even if he is your father. Poor little Mother!

Kit. Well I’m all on your side, you know that. But of course, Sydney, a clergyman needn’t re-marry divorced people. It’s in that bill. The governor was quoting it to-day.

Sydney. But doesn’t he know the circumstances?

Kit. He only knows what I do.

Sydney. One doesn’t shout things at people, naturally. But it’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s only that my unfortunate father has been in an asylum ever since I can remember. Shell-shock. It began before I was born. He never came home again. Mother had to give up going to see him even. It seemed to make him worse.

Kit. Pretty tragic.

Sydney. Oh, for years now he hasn’t known anyone, luckily. And he’s well looked after. He’s quite all right.

Kit. [Uncomfortably] You’re a queer girl.

Sydney. But he is.

Kit. Yes—but—

Sydney. What?

Kit. Your own father—

Sydney. [Impatiently] My dear boy, I’ve never even seen him. Oh, of course it’s very sad, but I can’t go about with my handkerchief to my eyes all the time, can I?

Kit. Yes—but—

Sydney. I hate cant.

Kit. [Leaning over the back of the sofa, his hands playing with her chain] You little brute—you’re as hard as nails, aren’t you?

Sydney. [Putting up her face to him] Am I? [They kiss.]

Miss Fairfield. [Passing through] Really Sydney! Before lunch!

Kit. You know, old thing, sometimes I don’t feel as if I should ever really get on with your aunt.

Sydney. [Dimpling] You’ll have to if—

Kit. Good Lord! You don’t want her in the house!

Sydney. [Calmly] I must take her off Mother sometimes. That’s only fair. But she shan’t worry you.

Kit. I say, you’re going to have things your own way, aren’t you?

Sydney. But of course I am, darling.

Kit. [Heavily] But look here—marriage is a sort of mutual show, isn’t it? We’ve got to pull together.

Sydney. Of course.

Kit. But suppose we come to a cross-roads, so to speak?