Jill.  Well, I’ll tell you.  In the first place, he’s not amorous.

Hillcrist. What!  Well, that’s some comfort.

Jill.  Just a jolly good companion.

Hillcrist. To whom?

Jill.  Well, to anyone—­me.

Hillcrist. Where?

Jill.  Anywhere.  You don’t suppose I confine myself to the home paddocks, do you?  I’m naturally rangey, Father.

Hillcrist. [Ironically] You don’t say so!

Jill.  In the second place, he doesn’t like discipline.

Hillcrist. Jupiter!  He does seem attractive.

Jill.  In the third place, he bars his father.

Hillcrist. Is that essential to nice girls too?

Jill. [With a twirl of his hair] Fish not!  Fourthly, he’s got ideas.

Hillcrist. I knew it!

Jill.  For instance, he thinks—­as I do——­

Hillcrist. Ah!  Good ideas.

Jill. [Pulling gently] Careful!  He thinks old people run the show too much.  He says they oughtn’t to, because they’re so damtouchy.  Are you damtouchy, darling?

Hillcrist. Well, I’m——!  I don’t know about touchy.

Jill.  He says there’ll be no world fit to live in till we get rid of the old.  We must make them climb a tall tree, and shake them off it.

Hillcrist. [Drily] Oh! he says that!

Jill.  Otherwise, with the way they stand on each other’s rights, they’ll spoil the garden for the young.

Hillcrist. Does his father agree?

Jill.  Oh!  Rolf doesn’t talk to him, his mouth’s too large.  Have you ever seen it, Dodo?

Hillcrist. Of course.

Jill.  It’s considerable, isn’t it?  Now yours is—­reticent, darling. [Rumpling his hair.]

Hillcrist. It won’t be in a minute.  Do you realise that I’ve got gout?

Jill.  Poor ducky!  How long have we been here, Dodo?

Hillcrist. Since Elizabeth, anyway.

Jill. [Looking at his foot] It has its drawbacks.  D’you think Hornblower had a father?  I believe he was spontaneous.  But, Dodo, why all this—­this attitude to the Hornblowers?

     [She purses her lips and makes a gesture as of pushing persons
     away.]

Hillcrist. Because they’re pushing.

Jill.  That’s only because we are, as mother would say, and they’re not—­yet.  But why not let them be?

Hillcrist. You can’t.

Jill.  Why?

Hillcrist. It takes generations to learn to live and let live,
Jill.  People like that take an ell when you give them an inch.

Jill.  But if you gave them the ell, they wouldn’t want the inch. 
Why should it all be such a skin game?