LADY STUTFIELD. Thank you, thank you. I will make a point of
repeating it.

MRS. ALLONBY. When Ernest and I were engaged, he swore to me
positively on his knees that he had never loved any one before in
the whole course of his life. I was very young at the time, so I
didn't believe him, I needn't tell you. Unfortunately, however, I
made no enquiries of any kind till after I had been actually
married four or five months. I found out then that what he had
told me was perfectly true. And that sort of thing makes a man so
absolutely uninteresting.

LADY HUNSTANTON. My dear!

MRS. ALLONBY. Men always want to be a woman's first love. That is
their clumsy vanity. We women have a more subtle instinct about
things. What we like is to be a man's last romance.

LADY STUTFIELD. I see what you mean. It's very, very beautiful.

LADY HUNSTANTON. My dear child, you don't mean to tell me that you
won't forgive your husband because he never loved any one else?
Did you ever hear such a thing, Caroline? I am quite surprised.

LADY CAROLINE. Oh, women have become so highly educated, Jane,
that nothing should surprise us nowadays, except happy marriages.
They apparently are getting remarkably rare.

MRS. ALLONBY. Oh, they're quite out of date.