CHARTERIS. Of course. He's been studying it in the club. He's always
there.

CUTHBERTSON (warmly). Not always. Don't exaggerate, Charteris. You
know very well that though I joined the club on Grace's account,
thinking that her father's presence there would be a protection and
a--a sort of sanction, as it were--I never approved of it.

CRAVEN (tactlessly harping on Cuthbertson's inconsistency). Well, you
know, this is unexpected: now it's really very unexpected. I should
never have thought it from hearing you talk, Jo. Why, you said the
whole modern movement was abhorrent to you because your life had been
passed in witnessing scenes of suffering nobly endured and sacrifice
willingly rendered by womanly women and manly men and deuce knows what
else. Is it at the Ibsen club that you see all this manliness and
womanliness?

CHARTERIS. Certainly not: the rules of the club forbid anything of
that sort. Every candidate for membership must be nominated by a man
and a woman, who both guarantee that the candidate, if female, is not
womanly, and if male, is not manly.

CRAVEN (chuckling cunningly and stooping to press his heated trousers
against his legs, which are chilly). Won't do, Charteris. Can't take
me in with so thin a story as that.

CUTHBERTSON (vehemently). It's true. It's monstrous, but it's true.

CRAVEN (with rising indignation, as he begins to draw the inevitable