am alone one minute, and then the door opens to the
inevitable. I pay a visit, he is passing the house as I leave it. He
will not even affect surprise. I belong to him, I am cat's mouse. And
he will look doating on me in public. And when I speak to anybody, he is
that fearful picture of all smirks. Fling off a kid glove after a round
of calls; feel your hand--there you have me now that I am out of him for
my half a day, if for as long.

ASTRAEA: This is one of the world's happy marriages!

LYRA: This is one of the world's choice dishes! And I have it planted
under my nostrils eternally. Spare me the mention of Pluriel until he
appears; that's too certain this very day. Oh! good husband! good
kind of man! whatever you please; only some peace, I do pray, for the
husband-haunted wife. I like him, I like him, of course, but I want to
breathe. Why, an English boy perpetually bowled by a Christmas pudding
would come to loathe the mess.

ASTRAEA: His is surely the excess of a merit.

LYRA: Excess is a poison. Excess of a merit is a capital offence in
morality. It disgusts, us with virtue. And you are the cunningest of
fencers, tongue, or foils. You lead me to talk of myself, and I hate the
subject. By the way, you have practised with Mr. Arden.

ASTRAEA: A tiresome instructor, who lets you pass his guard to
compliment you on a hit.

LYRA: He rather wins me.

ASTRAEA: He does at first.

LYRA: Begins Plurielizing, without the law to back him, does he?

ASTRAEA: The fencing lessons are at an end.

LYRA: The duetts with Mr. Swithin's violoncello continue?

ASTRAEA: He broke through the melody.

LYRA: There were readings in poetry with Mr. Osier, I recollect.

ASTRAEA: His own compositions became obtrusive.

LYRA: No fencing, no music, no poetry! no West Coast of Africa either, I
suppose.

ASTRAEA: Very well! I am on my defence. You at least shall not
misunderstand me, Lyra. One intense regret I have; that I did not
live in the time of the Amazons. They were free from this question of
marriage; this babble of love. Why am I so persecuted? He will not
take a refusal. There are sacred reasons. I am supported by every woman
having the sense of her dignity. I am perverted, burlesqued by the fury
of wrath I feel at their incessant pursuit. And I despise Mr. Osier and
Mr. Swithin because they have an air of pious agreement with the Dame,
and are conspirators behind their mask.

LYRA: False, false men!

ASTRAEA: The