PURDIE. If any blame there is, it is all mine; she is as spotless as
the driven snow. The moment I mentioned love to her she told me to
desist.

MABEL. Not she.

JOANNA. So you were listening! (The obtuseness of MABEL is very
strange to her.) Mabel, don't you see how splendid he is!

MABEL. Not quite, Joanna.

(She goes away. She is really a better woman than this, but never
capable of scaling that higher plane to which he has, as it were,
offered her a hand.)

JOANNA. How lovely of you, Jack, to take it all upon yourself.

PURDIE (simply). It is the man's privilege.

JOANNA. Mabel has such a horrid way of seeming to put people in the
wrong.

PURDIE. Have you noticed that? Poor Mabel, it is not an enviable
quality.

JOANNA (despondently). I don't think I care to go out now. She has
spoilt it all. She has taken the innocence out of it, Jack.

PURDIE (a rock). We must be brave and not mind her. Ah, Joanna, if we
had met in time. If only I could begin again. To be battered for ever