Girls of your age fall in love with all sorts of
impossible people, especially old people.
ELLIE. I like Mr Mangan very much; and I shall always be--
MRS HUSHABYE [impatiently completing the sentence and prancing
away intolerantly to starboard]. --grateful to him for his
kindness to dear father. I know. Anybody else?
ELLIE. What do you mean?
MRS HUSHABYE. Anybody else? Are you in love with anybody else?
ELLIE. Of course not.
MRS HUSHABYE. Humph! [The book on the drawing-table catches her
eye. She picks it up, and evidently finds the title very
unexpected. She looks at Ellie, and asks, quaintly] Quite sure
you're not in love with an actor?
ELLIE. No, no. Why? What put such a thing into your head?
MRS HUSHABYE. This is yours, isn't it? Why else should you be
reading Othello?
ELLIE. My father taught me to love Shakespeare.
MRS HUSHAYE [flinging the book down on the table]. Really! your
father does seem to be about the limit.
ELLIE [naively]. Do you never read Shakespeare, Hesione? That
seems to me so extraordinary. I like Othello.
MRS HUSHABYE. Do you, indeed? He was jealous, wasn't he?
ELLIE. Oh, not that. I think all the part about jealousy is
horrible. But don't you think it must have been a wonderful
experience for Desdemona, brought up so quietly at home, to meet
a man who had been out in the world doing all sorts of brave
things and having terrible adventures, and yet finding something
in her that made him love to sit and talk with her and tell her
about them?
MRS HUSHABYE.
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