Hotchkiss.  You forget, Anthony:  the marriage itself is the deadly sin according to you.

Soames.  The question is not now what I believe, but what you believe.  Take the vows with me; and give up that woman if you have the strength and the light.  But if you are still in the grip of this world, at least respect its institutions.  Do you believe in marriage or do you not?

Hotchkiss.  My soul is utterly free from any such superstition.  I solemnly declare that between this woman, as you impolitely call her, and me, I see no barrier that my conscience bids me respect.  I loathe the whole marriage morality of the middle classes with all my instincts.  If I were an eighteenth century marquis I could feel no more free with regard to a Parisian citizen’s wife than I do with regard to Polly.  I despise all this domestic purity business as the lowest depth of narrow, selfish, sensual, wife-grabbing vulgarity.

Mrs George [rising promptly] Oh, indeed.  Then youre not coming home with me, young man.  I’m sorry; for its refreshing to have met once in my life a man who wasnt frightened by my wedding ring; but I’m looking out for a friend and not for a French marquis; so youre not coming home with me.

Hotchkiss [inexorably] Yes, I am.

Mrs George.  No.

Hotchkiss.  Yes.  Think again.  You know your set pretty well, I suppose, your petty tradesmen’s set.  You know all its scandals and hypocrisies, its jealousies and squabbles, its hundred of divorce cases that never come into court, as well as its tens that do.

Mrs George.  We’re not angels.  I know a few scandals; but most of us are too dull to be anything but good.

Hotchkiss.  Then you must have noticed that just an all murderers, judging by their edifying remarks on the scaffold, seem to be devout Christians, so all Christians, both male and female, are invariably people over-flowing with domestic sentimentality and professions of respect for the conventions they violate in secret.

Mrs George.  Well, you dont expect them to give themselves away, do you?

Hotchkiss.  They are people of sentiment, not of honor.  Now, I’m not a man of sentiment, but a man of honor.  I know well what will happen to me when once I cross the threshold of your husband’s house and break bread with him.  This marriage bond which I despise will bind me as it never seems to bind the people who believe in it, and whose chief amusement it is to go to the theatres where it is laughed at.  Soames:  youre a Communist, arnt you?

Soames.  I am a Christian.  That obliges me to be a Communist.

Hotchkiss.  And you believe that many of our landed estates were stolen from the Church by Henry the eighth?

Soames.  I do not merely believe that:  I know it as a lawyer.