for ever; and I’ll take care that you shall be well off when I’m gone.
VIVIE. I am proof against even that inducement, Sir George. Don’t you think you’d better take your answer? There is not the slightest chance of my altering it.
CROFTS. [Rising, after a final slash at a daisy, and coming nearer to her.] Well, no matter. I could tell you some things that would change your mind fast enough; but I wont, because I’d rather win you by honest affection. I was a good friend to your mother: ask her whether I wasn’t. She’d never have make the money that paid for your education if it hadn’t been for my advice and help, not to mention the money I advanced her. There are not many men who would have stood by her as I have. I put not less than forty thousand pounds into it, from first to last.
VIVIE. [Staring at him.] Do you mean to say that you were my mother’s business partner?
CROFTS. Yes. Now just think of all the trouble and the explanations it would save if we were to keep the whole thing in the family, so to speak. Ask your mother whether she’d like to have to explain all her affairs to a perfect stranger.
VIVIE. I see no difficulty, since I understand that the business is wound up, and the money invested.
CROFTS. [Stopping short, amazed.] Wound up! Wind up a business that’s paying 35 per cent in the worst years! Not likely. Who told you that?
VIVIE. [Her color quite gone.] Do you mean that it is still—? [She stops abruptly, and puts her hand on the sundial to support herself. Then she gets quickly to the iron chair and sits down.] What business are you talking about?
CROFTS. Well, the fact is it’s not what would considered exactly a high-class business in my set—the country set, you know—our set it will be if you think better of my offer. Not that there’s any mystery about it: don’t think that. Of course you know by your mother’s being in it that it’s perfectly straight and honest. I’ve known her for many years; and I can say of her that she’d cut off her hands sooner than touch anything that was not what it ought to be. I’ll tell you all about it if you like. I don’t know whether you’ve found in travelling how hard it is to find a really comfortable private hotel.
VIVIE. [Sickened, averting her face.] Yes: go on.
CROFTS. Well, that’s all it is. Your mother has got a genius for managing such things. We’ve got two in Brussels, one in Ostend, one in Vienna, and two in Budapest. Of course there are others besides ourselves in it; but we hold most of the capital; and your mother’s indispensable as managing director. You’ve noticed, I daresay, that she travels a good deal. But you see you can’t mention such things in society. Once let out the word hotel and everybody thinks you keep a public-house. You wouldn’t like people to say that of your mother, would you? That’s why we’re so reserved about it. By the way, you’ll keep it to yourself, won’t you? Since it’s been a secret so long, it had better remain so.
VIVIE. And this is the business you invite me to join you in?
CROFTS. Oh no. My wife shan’t be troubled with business. You’ll not be in it more than you’ve always been.
VIVIE. I always been! What do you mean?
CROFTS. Only that you’ve always lived on it. It paid for your education and the dress you have on your back. Don’t turn up your nose at business, Miss Vivie: where would your Newnhams and Girtons be without it?
VIVIE. [Rising, almost beside herself.] Take care. I know what this business is.
CROFTS. [Starting, with a suppressed oath.] Who told you?
VIVIE. Your partner. My mother.
CROFTS. [Black with rage.] The old—[Vivie looks quickly at him. He swallows the epithet and stands for a moment swearing and raging foully to himself. But he knows that his cue is to be sympathetic. He takes refuge in generous indignation.] She ought to have had more consideration for you. I’d never have told you.
VIVIE. I think you would probably have told me when we were married: it would have been a convenient weapon to break me in with.
CROFTS. [Quite sincerely.] I never intended that. On my word as a gentleman I didn’t.[Vivie wonders at him. Her sense of the irony of his protest cools and braces her. She replies with contemptuous self-possession.]
VIVIE. It does not matter. I suppose you understand that when we leave here today our acquaintance ceases.
CROFTS. Why? Is it for helping your mother?
VIVIE. My mother was a very poor woman who had no reasonable choice but to do as she did. You were a rich gentleman; and you did the same for the sake of 35 per cent. You are a pretty common sort of scoundrel, I think. That is my opinion of you.
CROFTS. [After a stare: not at all displeased, and much more at his ease on these Frank terms than on their former ceremonious ones.] Ha! ha! ha! ha! Go it, little missie, go it: it doesn’t hurt me and it amuses you. Why the devil shouldn’t I invest my money that way? I take the interest on my capital like other people: I hope you don’t think I dirty my own hands with the work. Come! you wouldn’t refuse the acquaintance of my mother’s cousin the Duke of Belgravia because some of the rents he gets are earned in queer ways. You wouldn’t cut the Archbishop of Canterbury, I suppose, because the Ecclesiastical Commissioners have a few publicans and sinners among their tenants. Do you remember your Crofts scholarship at Newnham? Well, that was founded by my brother the M. P. He gets his 22 per cent out of a factory with 600 girls in it, and not one of them getting wages enough to live on. How d’ye suppose they manage when they have no family to fall back on? Ask your mother. And do you expect me to turn my back on 35 per cent when all the rest are pocketing what they can, like sensible men? No such fool! If you’re going to pick and choose your acquaintances on moral principles, you’d better clear out of this country, unless you want to cut yourself out of all decent society.
VIVIE. [Conscience stricken.] You might go on to point out that I myself never asked where the money I spent came from. I believe I am just as bad as you.
CROFTS. [Greatly reassured.] Of course you are; and a very good thing too! What harm does it do after all? [Rallying her jocularly.] So you don’t think me such a scoundrel now you come to think it over. Eh?
VIVIE. I have shared profits with you: and I admitted you just now to the familiarity of knowing what I think of you.
CROFTS. [With serious friendliness.] To be sure you did. You won’t find me a bad sort: I don’t go in for being superfine intellectually; but I’ve plenty of honest human feeling; and the old Crofts breed comes out in a sort of instinctive hatred of anything low, in which I’m sure you’ll sympathize with me. Believe me, Miss Vivie, the world isn’t such a bad place as the croakers make out. As long as you don’t fly openly in the face of society, society doesn’t ask any inconvenient questions; and it makes precious short work of the cads who do. There are no secrets better kept than the secrets everybody guesses. In the class of people I can introduce you to, no lady or gentleman would so far forget themselves as to discuss my business affairs or your mothers. No man can offer you a safer position.
VIVIE. [Studying him curiously.] I suppose you really think you’re getting on famously with me.
CROFTS. Well, I hope I may flatter myself that you think better of me than you did at first.
VIVIE. [Quietly.] I hardly find you worth thinking about at all now. [She rises and turns towards the gate, pausing on her way to contemplate him and say almost gently, but with intense
