The Charity That Began At Home
your fault. You thought you loved me and you asked me to marry you. Now you find you don’t, and you ask me to release you. You’ve been quite kind and straightforward. There’s nothing to forgive. VERREKER: (With the nearest approach to emotion that he has allowed himself since the beginning of this scene.) My dear, my dear, it’s not that. I loved you before. I love you still. I believe I shall always love you—so long as I don’t marry you. But married we should be miserable. MARGERY: (Gently.) I don’t think I should be miserable. VERREKER: (Briskly.) I know I should. At first I should be as unselfish as the deuce just to oblige you. But after a bit I shouldn’t be able to stand it, and I should strike. And then you’d be disappointed, and I should be disagreeable, and our marriage would become a tragedy. (Sincerely.) I don’t want that to happen. I’d rather you found me out now while you’re still fond of me than later when you had come to hate me. MARGERY: I should never hate you, Hugh. VERREKER: You couldn’t help yourself, my dear. An unhappy marriage would demoralise even you. They say some forms of suffering ennoble people, and putting up with what one doesn’t like is supposed to be good for the character—though I’m sure I don’t know why. But an unhappy marriage never ennobled man or woman. It makes them peevish and unreasonable. It sours their tempers and ruins their digestions. My parents didn’t get on together, and I know. If the parsons cared two straws about morality instead of thinking only of their dogmas, they’d make divorcing one’s wife as easy as dismissing one’s cook. Easier.
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MARGERY: Hugh! VERREKER: They would! When married people don’t hit it off, they jar. There’s no middle course. And when the jarring has gone on for a certain length of time it gets past bearing. Human nerves won’t stand it. Nothing will enable them to stand it. Not love, nor religion, nor all the seven deadly virtues. Socrates was a good man, but he made his wife pretty unhappy. MARGERY: (The tears are dangerously near her eyes.) And you think I should make you unhappy? VERREKER: (Cheerfully.) I’m sure of it. So let’s behave accordingly. (VERREKER continues more gently. The danger of tears has been averted.) VERREKER: Come, Margery, say you release me and get it over. MARGERY: (Slowly.) Very well. If you really wish it … you’re sure you do wish it? VERR EK ER: Quite. Thanks, dear. You’ve behaved like a trump, as you always do. And I think I must kiss you goodbye. (Does so tenderly.) Don’t say anything to the others till after I’ve left. I rather dread Mrs. Eversleigh’s unconcealed satisfaction. I shall go tomorrow. MARGERY: Very well. If you’d rather not. VERREKER: (Looking at her half-ironically.) I’m afraid you think I’ve been a selfish beast about this? MARGERY: (Wistfully.) A little selfish, perhaps. VERREKER: You’re wrong. For the first, and I hope the last, time in my life I’ve done an unselfish action. I’m a pauper, you know, and you’re something of an