nd
it turns out that I couldn't have done a smarter stroke of
electioneering.

NORA. An would you let me demean meself like that, just to get
yourself into parliament?

BROADBENT [buoyantly]. Aha! Wait till you find out what an
exciting game electioneering is: you'll be mad to get me in.
Besides, you'd like people to say that Tom Broadbent's wife had
been the making of him--that she got him into parliament--into
the Cabinet, perhaps, eh?

NORA. God knows I don't grudge you me money! But to lower meself
to the level of common people.

BROADBENT. To a member's wife, Nora, nobody is common provided
he's on the register. Come, my dear! it's all right: do you think
I'd let you do it if it wasn't? The best people do it. Everybody
does it.

NORA [who has been biting her lip and looking over the hill,
disconsolate and unconvinced]. Well, praps you know best what
they do in England. They must have very little respect for
themselves. I think I'll go in now. I see Larry and Mr Keegan
coming up the hill; and I'm not fit to talk to them.

BROADBENT. Just wait and say something nice to Keegan. They tell
me he controls nearly as many votes as Father Dempsey himself.

NORA. You little know Peter Keegan. He'd see through me as if I
was a pane o glass.

BROADBENT. Oh, he won't like it any the less for that. What
really flatters a man is that you think him worth flattering. Not
that I would flatter any man: don't think that. I'll just go and
meet him. [He goes down the hill with the eager forward look of a
man about to greet a valued acquaintance. Nora dries her eyes,
and turns to go as Larry strolls up the hill to her].

LARRY. Nora. [She turns and looks at him hardly, without a word.
He continues anxiously, in his most conciliatory tone]. When I
left you that time, I was just as wretched as you. I didn't
rightly know what I wanted to say; and my tongue kept clacking to
cover the loss I was at. Well, I've been thinking ever since; and
now I know what I ought to have said. I've come back to say it.

NORA. You've come too late, then. You thought eighteen years was
not long enough, and that you might keep me waiting a day longer.
Well, you were mistaken. I'm engaged to your friend Mr Broadbent;
and I'm done with you.

LARRY [naively]. But that was the very thing I was going to
advise you to do.

NORA [involuntarily]. Oh you brute! to tell me that to me face.

LARRY [nervously relapsing into his most Irish manner]. Nora,