her.)

OLIVIA. Oh, but there must be lots you want to say--and perhaps don't
like to. Do tell me, darling.

GEORGE. What it comes to is this. I consider that Dinah is too young
to choose a husband for herself, and that Strange isn't the husband I
should choose for her.

OLIVIA. You were calling him Brian yesterday.

GEORGE. Yesterday I regarded him as a boy, now he wants me to look
upon him as a man.

OLIVIA. He's twenty-four.

GEORGE. And Dinah's nineteen. Ridiculous!

OLIVIA. If he'd been a Conservative, and thought that clouds were
round, I suppose he'd have seemed older, somehow.

GEORGE. That's a different point altogether. That has nothing to do
with his age.

OLIVIA (innocently). Oh, I thought it had.

GEORGE. What I am objecting to is these ridiculously early marriages
before either party knows its own mind, much less the mind of the
other party. Such marriages invariably lead to unhappiness.

OLIVIA. Of course, _my_ first marriage wasn't a happy one.

GEORGE. As you know, Olivia, I dislike speaking about your first
marriage at all, and I had no intention of bringing it up now, but
since you mention it--well, that is a case in point.

OLIVIA (looking back at it). When I was eighteen, I was in love. Or
perhaps I only thought I was, and I don't know if I should have been
happy or not if I had married him. But my father made me marry a man
called Jacob Telworthy; and when things were too hot for him in
England--"too hot for him"--I think that was the expression we used in
those days--then we went to Australia, and I left him there, and the
only happy moment I had in all my married life was on the morning when
I saw in the papers that he was dead.

GEORGE (very uncomfortable). Yes, yes, my dear, I know. You must have
had a terrible time. I can hardly bear to think about it. My only hope
is that I have made up to you for it in some degree. But I don't see
what bearing it has upon Dinah's case.

OLIVIA. Oh, none, except that _my_ father _liked_ Jacob's political
opinions and his views on art. I expect that that was why he chose him
for me.

GEORGE. You seem to think that I wish to choose a husband for Dinah. I
don't at all. Let her choose whom she likes as long as he can support
her and there's a chance of their being happy together. Now, with
regard to this fellow--

OLIVIA. You mean Brian?

GEORGE. He's got no money, and he's been brought up in quite a
different way from Dinah. Dinah may be