ang together
so terribly you never can tell what they're really thinking; it's as
if they were all in a conspiracy to keep you in the dark. Even with
Marlow, you feel that he never lets you know what's really in his
mind. I hate that secretiveness; it destroys all confidence. I
feel sometimes I should like to shake him.

JACK. Marlow's a most decent chap. It's simply beastly every one
knowing your affairs.

BARTHWICK. The less you say about that the better!

MRS. BARTHWICK. It goes all through the lower classes. You can not
tell when they are speaking the truth. To-day when I was shopping
after leaving the Holyroods, one of these unemployed came up and
spoke to me. I suppose I only had twenty yards or so to walk to the
carnage, but he seemed to spring up in the street.

BARTHWICK. Ah! You must be very careful whom you speak to in these
days.

MRS. BARTHWICK. I did n't answer him, of course. But I could see
at once that he wasn't telling the truth.

BARTHWICK. [Cracking a nut.] There's one very good rule--look at
their eyes.

JACK. Crackers, please, Dad.

BARTHWICK. [Passing the crackers.] If their eyes are
straight-forward I sometimes give them sixpence. It 's against my
principles, but it's most difficult to refuse. If you see that
they're desperate, and dull, and shifty-looking, as so many of them
are, it's certain to mean drink, or crime, or something
unsatisfactory.

MRS. BARTHWICK. This man had dreadful eyes. He looked as if he
could commit a murder. "I 've 'ad nothing to eat to-day," he said.
Just like that.

BARTHWICK. What was William about? He ought to have been waiting.

JACK. [Raising his wine-glass to his nose.] Is this the '63, Dad?

[BARTHWICK, holding his wine-glass to his eye, lowers it and
passes it before his nose.]

MRS. BARTHWICK. I hate people that can't speak the truth. [Father
and son exchange a look behind their port.] It 's just as easy to
speak the truth as not. I've always found it easy enough. It makes
it impossible to tell what is genuine; one feels as if one were
continually being taken in.

BARTHWICK. [Sententiously.] The lower classes are their own
enemies. If they would only trust us, they would get on so much
better.

MRS. BARTHWICK. But even then it's so often their own fault. Look
at that Mrs. Jones this morning.

BARTHWICK. I only want to do what's right in that matter. I had
occasion to see Roper this afternoo