HER HUSBAND. What is Mrs Bompas to you, I'd like to know. I'll
tell you what Mrs Bompas is. She's the smartest woman in the
smartest set in South Kensington, and the handsomest, and the
cleverest, and the most fetching to experienced men who know a
good thing when they see it, whatever she may be to conceited
penny-a-lining puppies who think nothing good enough for them.
It's admitted by the best people; and not to know it argues
yourself unknown. Three of our first actor-managers have offered
her a hundred a week if she'd go on the stage when they start a
repertory theatre; and I think they know what they're about as
well as you. The only member of the present Cabinet that you
might call a handsome man has neglected the business of the
country to dance with her, though he don't belong to our set as a
regular thing. One of the first professional poets in Bedford
Park wrote a sonnet to her, worth all your amateur trash. At
Ascot last season the eldest son of a duke excused himself from
calling on me on the ground that his feelings for Mrs Bompas were
not consistent with his duty to me as host; and it did him honor
and me too. But [with gathering fury] she isn't good enough for
you, it seems. You regard her with coldness, with indifference;
and you have the cool cheek to tell me so to my face. For two
pins I'd flatten your nose in to teach you manners. Introducing a
fine woman to you is casting pearls before swine [yelling at him]
before SWINE! d'ye hear?

HE [with a deplorable lack of polish] You call me a swine again
and I'll land you one on the chin that'll make your head sing for
a week.