hat
Art nowadays! Good God, man, (waving him to the windows) go outside
and _look_ at the clouds!

OLIVIA. If he draws round clouds in future, George, will you let him
marry Dinah?

GEORGE. What--what? Yes, of course, you _would_ be on his side--all
this Futuristic nonsense. I'm just taking these clouds as an example.
I suppose I can see as well as any man in the county, and I say that
clouds _aren't_ triangular.

BRIAN. After all, sir, at my age one is naturally experimenting, and
trying to find one's (with a laugh)--well, it sounds priggish, but
one's medium of expression. I shall find out what I want to do
directly, but I think I shall always be able to earn enough to live
on. Well, I have for the last three years.

GEORGE. I see, and now you want to experiment with a wife, and you
propose to start experimenting with _my_ niece?

BRIAN (with a shrug). Well, of course, if you--

OLIVIA. You could help the experiment, darling, by giving Dinah a good
allowance until she's twenty-one.

GEORGE. Help the experiment! I don't _want_ to help the experiment.

OLIVIA (apologetically). Oh, I thought you did.

GEORGE. You will talk as if I was made of money. What with taxes
always going up and rents always going down, it's as much as we can do
to rub along as we are, without making allowances to everybody who
thinks she wants to get married. (to BRIAN) And that's thanks to you,
my friend.

BRIAN (surprised) To me?

OLIVIA. You never told me, darling. What's Brian been doing?

DINAH (indignantly). He hasn't been doing anything.

GEORGE. He's one of your Socialists who go turning the country upside
down.

OLIVIA. But even Socialists must get married sometimes.

GEORGE. I don't see any necessity.

OLIVIA. But you'd have nobody to damn after dinner, darling, if they
all died out.

BRIAN. Really, sir, I don't see what my politics and my art have got
to do with it. I'm perfectly ready not to talk about either when I'm
in your house, and as Dinah doesn't seem to object to them--

DINAH. I should think she doesn't.

GEORGE. Oh, you can get round the women, I daresay.

BRIAN. Well, it's Dinah I want to marry and live with. So what it
really comes to is that you don't think I can support a wife.

GEORGE. Well, if you're going to do it by selling pictures, I don't
think you can.

BRIAN. All right, tell me how much you want me to earn in a year, and
I'll earn it.

GEORGE (hedging). It isn't merely a question o