EVELYN [_bewildered_]. But I don't understand. You talk as if you had actually done all this before.
EVELYN. Oh! [_Jumps up from the ground and faces him, her eyes flashing with rage._]
CECIL. I say, don't get up. It's not time to go yet. It's only four. Sit down again.
EVELYN [_struggling for words_]. Do you mean to say you've been in love with girls before? _Other_ girls?
CECIL [_apparently genuinely astonished at the question_]. Of course I have.
CECIL. Not engaged. I've never been engaged so far. But I've been in love over and over again.
[_Evelyn stamps her foot with rage--turning away from him._]
My dear girl, what _is_ the matter? You look quite cross. [_Rises._]
EVELYN [_furious_]. And you're not even _ashamed_ of it?
CECIL [_roused to sit up by this question_]. Ashamed of it? Ashamed of being in love? How can you say such a thing! Of course I'm not ashamed. What's the good of being alive at all if one isn't to be in love? I'm perpetually in love. In fact, I'm hardly ever out of love--with somebody.
EVELYN [_still furious_]. Then if you're in love, why don't you get engaged? A man has no business to make love to a girl and not be engaged to her. It's not right.
CECIL [_reasoning with her_]. That's the parents' fault. I told you parents were preposterous people. They won't allow me to get engaged.
CECIL. Oh, for different reasons. They say I'm not _serious_ enough. Or that I don't work enough. Or that I haven't got enough money. Or else they simply say they "don't think I'm fitted to make their daughter happy." Anyhow, they won't sanction an engagement. They all agree about _that_. Your mother would be just the same.
I don't blame her. I don't say she's not right. I don't say they haven't all been right. In fact, I believe they _have_ been right. I'm only explaining how it is.
EVELYN [_savagely_]. I see how it is. You don't really want to be married.
CECIL. Of course I don't _want_ to be married. Nobody does unless he's perfectly idiotic. One wants to be in love. Being in love's splendid. And I dare say being engaged isn't bad--though I've had no experience of that so far. But being married must be simply hateful.
EVELYN [_boiling with rage_]. Nonsense! How can it be hateful to be married if it's splendid to be in love?