_ Tranto.)

TRANTO. Splendid! You're the most courageous creature I ever met.

HILDEGARDE. Possibly. But not courageous enough to offer to kiss mamma
when I went to bed on the night that _that (indicating the article_) had
appeared in print under my own name. You don't know mamma.

TRANTO. But dash it! You could eat your mother!

HILDEGARDE. Pardon me. The contrary is the fact. Mamma could eat me.

TRANTO. But you're the illustrious Sampson Straight. There's more
intelligence in your little finger than there is in your mother's whole
body. See how you write.

HILDEGARDE. Write! I only began to write as a relief from mamma. I
escaped secretly into articles like escaping into an underground
passage. But as for facing mamma in the open!... Even father scarcely
ever does that; and when he does, we hold our breath, and the cook turns
teetotal. It wouldn't be the slightest use me trying to explain the
situation logically to mamma. She wouldn't understand. She's far too
clever to understand anything she doesn't like. Perhaps that's the
secret of her power. No, if the truth about Sampson Straight is to come
out I must leave home--quietly but firmly leave home. And why not? I can
keep myself in splendour on Sampson's earnings. And the break is bound
to come sooner or later. I admit I didn't begin very seriously, but
reading my own articles has gradually made me serious. I feel I have a
cause. A cause may be inconvenient, but it's magnificent. It's like
champagne or high heels, and one must be prepared to suffer for it.

TRANTO. Cause be hanged! Suffer be hanged! High heels be hanged!
Champagne--(_stops_). Miss Culver, if a disclosure means your leaving
home I won't agree to any disclosure whatever. I will--not--agree.
We'll sit tight on the volcano.

HILDEGARDE. But why won't you agree?

TRANTO (_excited_). Why won't I agree! Why won't I agree! Because I
don't want you to leave home. I know you're a born genius--a marvel, a
miracle, a prodigy, an incredible orchid, the most brilliant journalist
in London. I'm fully aware of all that. But I do not and will not see
you as a literary bachelor living with a cause and holding receptions of
serious people in chambers furnished by Roger Fry. I like to think of
you at home, here, in this charming atmosphere, amid the delightful
vicissitudes of family existence, and--well, I like to think of you as a
woman.

HILDEGARDE (_calmly and teasingly_). Mr. Tranto, we are forgetting on