MRS. JUNO. What!

GREGORY. Oh, it sounds uncomplimentary; but it isn't really. Do
you know why half the couples who find themselves situated as we
are now behave horridly?

MRS. JUNO. Because they can't help it if they let things go too
far.

GREGORY. Not a bit of it. It's because they have nothing else to
do, and no other way of entertaining each other. You don't know
what it is to be alone with a woman who has little beauty and
less conversation. What is a man to do? She can't talk
interestingly; and if he talks that way himself she doesn't
understand him. He can't look at her: if he does, he only finds
out that she isn't beautiful. Before the end of five minutes they
are both hideously bored. There's only one thing that can save
the situation; and that's what you call being horrid. With a
beautiful, witty, kind woman, there's no time for such follies.
It's so delightful to look at her, to listen to her voice, to
hear all she has to say, that nothing else happens. That is why
the woman who is supposed to have a thousand lovers seldom has
one; whilst the stupid, graceless animals of women have dozens.

MRS. JUNO. I wonder! It's quite true that when one feels in
danger one talks like mad to stave it off, even when one doesn't
quite want to stave it off.

GREGORY. One never does quite want to stave it off. Danger is
delicious. But death isn't. We court the danger; but the real