_Norie_: "Why, about its being very healthy to have babies when
you're between the ages of twenty and thirty; and how with this
twilight sleep business she doesn't mind how often; that it's fifty
times more interesting than breeding dogs and cats or guinea-pigs;
and she's surprised more single women don't take it up. I think she
must be détraquée.... I have a faint hope that by taking her in hand
and interesting her in our work--which _entre nous deux_--is turning
out to be very profitable--I may sober her and regularize her. No
doubt in 1950 most women will talk as she does to-day, but the
advance is too abrupt. It not only robs _her_ parents of all
happiness, but it upsets _my_ mother. She now wrings her hands over
her own past and fears that by working so strenuously for the
emancipation of women she has assisted to breach the dam--Can't you
imagine the way the old cats of both sexes go on at her?--the dam
which held up female virtue, and that Society now will be drowned in
a flood of Free Love..."

_Vivie_: "Well! We'll give her a six months' trial here, and see if
our mix-up of advice in Law, Banking, Estate management,
Stock-and-share dealing, Divorce, Private Enquiries, probate, etc.,
does not prove _much_ more interesting than an illicit connection
with a hare-brained architect.... If she proves impossible you'll
pack her off and Vivie shall return and D.V. Williams go abroad....
Don't you think there is something that ought to win over Providence
in that happily chosen name? _D.V._ Williams? And my mother once
actually called herself 'Vavasour.'

"Well, then, barring accidents and the unforeseen, it's agreed I go
on my holiday next Saturday, to return never no more--perhaps--?--"