I joined it, I had not time enough for all
the things I had to do.

UNDERSHAFT [approvingly] Just so. And why was that, do you
suppose?

BARBARA. Yesterday I should have said, because I was in the power
of God. [She resumes her self-possession, withdrawing her hands
from his with a power equal to his own]. But you came and showed
me that I was in the power of Bodger and Undershaft. Today I
feel--oh! how can I put it into words? Sarah: do you remember the
earthquake at Cannes, when we were little children?--how little
the surprise of the first shock mattered compared to the dread
and horror of waiting for the second? That is how I feel in this
place today. I stood on the rock I thought eternal; and without
a word of warning it reeled and crumbled under me. I was safe
with an infinite wisdom watching me, an army marching to
Salvation with me; and in a moment, at a stroke of your pen in a
cheque book, I stood alone; and the heavens were empty. That was
the first shock of the earthquake: I am waiting for the second.

UNDERSHAFT. Come, come, my daughter! Don't make too much of your
little tinpot tragedy. What do we do here when we spend years of
work and thought and thousands of pounds of solid cash on a new
gun or an aerial battleship that turns out just a hairsbreadth
wrong after all? Scrap it. Scrap it without wasting another hour
or another pound on it. Well, you have made for yourself
something that you call a morality or a religion or what not. It
doesn't fit the facts. Well, scrap it. Scrap it and get one that
does fit. That is what is wrong with the world at present. It
scraps its obsolete steam engines and dynamos; but it won't scrap
its old prejudices and its old moralities and its old religions
and its old political constitutions. What's the result? In
machinery it does very well; but in morals and religion and
politics it is working at a loss that brings it nearer bankruptcy
every year. Don't persist in that folly. If your old religion
broke down yesterday, get a newer and a better one for tomorrow.

BARBARA. Oh how gladly I would take a better one to my soul! But
you offer me a worse one. [Turning on him with sudden vehemence].
Justify yourself: show me some light through the darkness of this
dreadful place, with its beautifully clean workshops, and
respectable workmen, and model homes.

UNDERSHAFT. Cleanliness and respectability do not need
justification, Barbara: they justify themselves. I see no
dark