and nothing else. And I quite appreciate the very clever
way in which you systematically humbug me. I have found you out.
Take care Barbara doesn't. That's all.

CUSINS [with unruffled sweetness] Don't tell on me. [He goes
out].

LADY BRITOMART. Sarah: if you want to go, go. Anything's better
than to sit there as if you wished you were a thousand miles
away.

SARAH [languidly] Very well, mamma. [She goes].

Lady Britomart, with a sudden flounce, gives way to a little gust
of tears.

STEPHEN [going to her] Mother: what's the matter?

LADY BRITOMART [swishing away her tears with her handkerchief]
Nothing. Foolishness. You can go with him, too, if you like, and
leave me with the servants.

STEPHEN. Oh, you mustn't think that, mother. I--I don't like him.

LADY BRITOMART. The others do. That is the injustice of a woman's
lot. A woman has to bring up her children; and that means to
restrain them, to deny them things they want, to set them tasks,
to punish them when they do wrong, to do all the unpleasant
things. And then the father, who has nothing to do but pet them
and spoil them, comes in when all her work is done and steals
their affection from her.

STEPHEN. He has not stolen our affection from you. It is only
curiosity.

LADY BRITOMART [violently] I won't be consoled, Stephen. There is
nothing the matter with me. [She rises and goes towards the
door].

STEPHEN. Where are you going, mother?

LADY BRITOMART. To the drawingroom, of course. [She goes out.
Onward, Christian Soldiers, on the concertina, with tambourine
accompaniment, is heard when the door opens]. Are you coming,
Stephen?

STEPHEN. No. Certainly not. [She goes. He sits down on the
settee, with compressed lips and an expression of strong
dislike].

ACT II

The yard of the West Ham shelter of the Salvation Army is a cold
place on a January morning. The building itself, an old
warehouse, is newly whitewashed. Its gabled end projects into the
yard in the middle, with a door on the ground floor, and another
in the loft above it without any balcony or ladder, but with a
pulley rigged over it for hoisting sacks. Those who come from
this central gable end into the yard have the gateway leading to
the street on their left, with a stone horse-trough just beyond
it, and, on the right, a penthouse shielding a table from the
weather. There are forms at the table; and on them are seated a
man and a woman, both much down on their luck, finishi