an't
be moral, at least we can avoid being vulgar.

JOHN. Well--

CYNTHIA. If there's to be no more marriage in the world--

JOHN. [_Cynically._] Oh, but that's not it; there's to be more and
more and more!

CYNTHIA. [_With a touch of bitterness._] Very well! I repeat then, if
there's to be nothing but marriage and divorce, and re-marriage, and
re-divorce, at least, at least, those who _are_ divorced can avoid the
vulgarity of meeting each other here, there, and everywhere!

JOHN. Oh, that's where you come out!

CYNTHIA. I thought so yesterday, and to-day I know it. It's an
insufferable thing to a woman of any delicacy of feeling to find her
husband--

JOHN. Ahem--former!

CYNTHIA. _Once_ a husband always--

JOHN. [_In the same cynical tone._] Oh, no! Oh, dear, no.

CYNTHIA. To find her--to find the man she has once lived with--in the
house of--making love to--to find you here! [JOHN _smiles and rises._]
You smile,--but I say, it should be a social axiom, no woman should
have to meet her former husband.

JOHN. [_Cynical and cutting._] Oh, I don't know; after I've served my
term I don't mind meeting my jailor.

CYNTHIA. [_As_ JOHN _takes chair near her._] It's indecent--at the
horse-show, the opera, at races and balls, to meet the man who
once--It's not civilized! It's fantastic! It's half baked! Oh, I never
should have come here! [_He sympathizes, and she grows irrational and
furious._] But it's entirely your fault!

JOHN. My fault?

CYNTHIA. [_Working herself into a rage._] Of course. What business
have you to be about--to be at large. To be at all!

JOHN. Gosh!

CYNTHIA. [_Her rage increasing._] To be where I am! Yes, it's just as
horrible for you to turn up in my life as it would be for a dead
person to insist on coming back to life and dinner and bridge!

JOHN. Horrid idea!

CYNTHIA. Yes, but it's _you_ who behave just as if you were not dead,
just as if I'd not spent a fortune on your funeral. You do; you
prepare to bob up at afternoon teas,--and dinners--and embarrass me to
death with your extinct personality!

JOHN. Well, of course we _were_ married, but it didn't quite kill me.

CYNTHIA. [_Angry and plain spoken._] You killed yourself for me--I
divorced you. I buried you out of my life. If any human soul was ever
dead, you are! And there's nothing I so hate as a gibbering ghost.

JOHN. Oh, I say!

CYNTHIA. [_With hot anger._] Go gibber and squeak where gibbering and
squeaking are t