Part 15 (1/2)

OLIVER. Quite. But what he loves, and what he admires, and what he aspires to, he MUST betray. It's his fatality. He lives for the moment when he can kiss Gerald in the Garden of Olives, or wherever it was.

ANABEL. But Gerald shouldn't be kissed.

OLIVER. That's what I say.

ANABEL. And that's what his mother means as well, I suppose.

(Enter GERALD.)

GERALD. Well--you've heard the voice of the people.

ANABEL. He isn't the people.

GERALD. I think he is, myself--the epitome.

OLIVER. No, he's a special type.

GERALD. Ineffectual, don't you think?

ANABEL. How pleased you are, Gerald! How pleased you are with yourself!

You love the turn with him.

GERALD. It's rather stimulating, you know.

ANABEL. It oughtn't to be, then.

OLIVER. He's you Judas, and you love him.

GERALD. Nothing so deep. He's just a sort of AEolian harp that sings to the temper of the wind. I find him amusing.

ANABEL. I think it's boring.

OLIVER. And I think it's nasty.

GERALD. I believe you're both jealous of him. What do you think of the working man, Oliver?

OLIVER. It seems to me he's in nearly as bad a way as the British employer: he's nearly as much beside the point.

GERALD. What point?

OLIVER. Oh, just life.

GERALD. That's too vague, my boy. Do you think they'll ever make a bust-up?

OLIVER. I can't tell. I don't see any good in it, if they do.