OLIVIA. He's twenty-four.
GEORGE. Yes, and Dinah's nineteen. Ridiculous. (_Crossing up to smoking-
table up_ R., _and filling his pipe which he finds on table_.)
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 (_crossing down_ C. _stuffing tobacco into his pipe_). 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. (_Moving to
fireplace looking for a match_.) 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--(_takes a match from table down_ L. OLIVIA _rises slowly and
goes up to_ R. _of writing-table_)--and I had no intention of bringing it
up now, but since you mention it--well, there's a case in point. (_Sits
on settee_ L., _lighting his pipe_.)
OLIVIA (_looking back at it_). When I was eighteen, I was in love.
GEORGE (_turning to her_). What?
OLIVIA. 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
Mr. Jacob Telworthy. (GEORGE _looks up at her, annoyed_.) 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.
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