opinion, and with no regard for what the world might say of you.

MRS. CLANDON (proud of it). Yes: that is true. (Gloria, behind the
chair, stoops and kisses her mother's hair, a demonstration which
disconcerts her extremely.)

McCOMAS. On the other hand, Mrs. Clandon, your husband had a great
horror of anything getting into the papers. There was his business to
be considered, as well as the prejudices of an old-fashioned family.

MRS. CLANDON. Not to mention his own prejudices.

McCOMAS. Now no doubt he behaved badly, Mrs. Clandon---

MRS. CLANDON (scornfully). No doubt.

McCOMAS. But was it altogether his fault?

MRS. CLANDON. Was it mine?

McCOMAS (hastily). No. Of course not.

GLORIA (observing him attentively). You do not mean that, Mr.
McComas.

McCOMAS. My dear young lady, you pick me up very sharply. But let
me just put this to you. When a man makes an unsuitable marriage
(nobody's fault, you know, but purely accidental incompatibility of
tastes); when he is deprived by that misfortune of the domestic sympathy
which, I take it, is what a man marries for; when in short, his wife is