- [Christopher is making notes in a large book. Sylvia angrily throws a tea cup at him; it misses, shattering next to him]
- Sylvia Tietjens: Do you know what he's doing? He's making corrections in the Encyclopedia Britannica. If I'd killed him, no jury would convict.
- Mrs. Satterthwaite: There are times when a woman hates a man, even a very good man as my husband was. I have walked behind a man's back and nearly screamed with the desire to sink my nails into the veins of his neck. And Sylvia's got it worse than I.
- Sylvia Tietjens: I am done with men. Think of all the ruin that child has meant for me. Christopher's perfectly soppy about him.
- Mrs. Satterthwaite: You don't deserve your husband, anyway. I can't imagine why he sent that telegram. "Resume yoke" indeed!
- Sylvia Tietjens: He sent it out of lordly, dull, full-dress consideration that drives me distracted. He couldn't write me a letter because he'd have to put "Dear Sylvia" - and I'm not. He's that precise sort of imbecile. I'll settle down by his side, and I'll be chaste. I've made up my mind to it. I'll be bored stiff for the rest of my life. Except for one thing: I can torment that man and I'll do it, for all the times he's tormented me.
- Mrs. Satterthwaite: [to Sylvia] No, you married above your intellect and don't take kindly to disadvantage.
- [at breakfast, Reverend Duchemin is about to say grace, but he is drunk and becoming very offensive]
- Reverend Duchemin: [to MacMaster] You look tired. Worn out. I detect the pallor of self-abuse.
- [Reverend Horsley splutters as he drinking a cup of tea]
- Christopher Tietjens: [mutters to Valentine Wannop] Don't turn round. Vincent MacMaster is quite capable.
- Reverend Duchemin: Post coitum tristia. Ah, the sorrows of spent semen. Boys - or girls in your case.
- Parry: Sir, your fish is getting cold. I'll bring the kidneys.
- Vincent Macmaster: [mutters to Edith Duchemin] If he'll eat a little, it brings the blood down from the head.
- Edith Duchemin: Oh, forgive. It's dreadful for you.
- Vincent Macmaster: My dear lady, please don't worry. It's what I'm for.
- Edith Duchemin: Oh, you good man.
- [Duchemin rambles on in Latin]
- Vincent Macmaster: [mutters to Edith Duchemin] I can stop this. Shall I?
- Edith Duchemin: Yes - anything.
- [MacMaster gets up and goes to have quiet word with Parry]
- Reverend Duchemin: [smiling at Miss Fox] ... the lament of the wife of the boy-buggerer: "My dear, I have an arsehole too!"
- [Miss Fox smiles back at him - being stone deaf she has not heard a word he's said]
- Vincent Macmaster: [to Parry] Get him out. The way you beat Kid Cantor at Hackney baths.
- Reverend Duchemin: "Alas, my dear, with women it's more a case of having two cun..."
- [Parry goes up to Duchemin and knees him in the groin]
- Parry: [pretending to help him] You all right, sir? It's time to write your sermon, sir. Ready, there we go.
- [Parry helps Duchemin, who is considerable pain, out of the room]
- Vincent Macmaster: [to Edith] Dear lady, it's all over now.
- Edith Duchemin: Please forgive. You can *never* respect me.
- Vincent Macmaster: You're the bravest woman I know.
- Vincent Macmaster: [on Sylvia] I wish you would divorce her. Drag her through the mud.
- Christopher Tietjens: In a gentleman, there is such a thing as... call it parade.
- Vincent Macmaster: And if you met someone you wanted to marry?
- Christopher Tietjens: It will change nothing. I stand for monogamy. Aye, monogamy and chastity.
- Reverend Duchemin: [to Vincent Macmaster] But you look tired. Worn. Worn out. I detect the pallor of self-abuse... Post-coitum tristia. Ahh, the sorrows of spent semen. Boys or girls in your case?