PHILIP. What else is there?

DOROTHY. There’s everything. You could do something serious and decent. You could do something brave and calm and good. You know what will happen if you keep on just crawling around from bar to bar and going with those dreadful people? You’ll be shot. A man was shot the other night in Chicote’s. It was terrible.

PHILIP. Any one we know?

DOROTHY. No. Just a poor man who was squirting every one with a flit gun. He didn’t mean any harm. And some one took offense and shot him. I saw it and it was very depressing. They shot him very suddenly and he lay on his back and his face was very gray and he’d been so gay just a little while before. They kept every one there for two hours, and the police smelt of everybody’s pistol and they wouldn’t serve any more drinks. They didn’t cover him up and we had to go and show our papers to a man at a table just beside where he was and it was very depressing, Philip. And he had such dirty hose and his shoes were completely worn through on the bottoms and he had no undershirt at all.

PHILIP. Poor chap. You know the stuff they drink is absolutely poison now. Makes people quite mad.

DOROTHY. But Philip, you don’t have to be like that. And you don’t have to go around and maybe have people shoot at you. You could do something political or something military and fine.

PHILIP. Don’t tempt me. Don’t make me ambitious.

[He pauses]

Don’t open vistas.

DOROTHY. That was a dreadful thing you did the other night with the spittoon. Trying to provoke trouble there in Chicote’s. Simply trying to provoke it, everybody said.

PHILIP. And who was I provoking?

DOROTHY. I don’t know. What does it matter who? You shouldn’t be provoking anybody.

PHILIP. No, I suppose not. It probably comes soon enough without provoking it.

DOROTHY. Don’t talk pessimistically, darling, when we’ve just started our life together.

PHILIP. Our——?

DOROTHY. Our life together. Philip, don’t you want to have a long, happy, quiet life at some place like Saint-Tropez or, you know, some place like Saint-Tropez was and have long walks, and go swimming and have children and be happy and everything? I mean really. Don’t you want all this to end? I mean you know, war and revolution?

PHILIP. And will we have the Continental Daily Mail for breakfast and brioches and fresh strawberry jam?

DOROTHY. Darling, we’ll have aufs au jambon and you can have the Morning Post if you like. And every one will say Messieur-Dame.

PHILIP. The Morning Post’s just stopped publishing.