MihaElla ’s Reviews > An Ideal Husband > Status Update

“I didn’t dare to make the smallest repartee, I need hardly tell you. If I had, it would have stopped the music at once. Musical people are so absurdly unreasonable. They always want one to be perfectly dumb at the very moment when one is longing to be absolutely deaf. 
Then he proposed to me in broad daylight this morning, in front of that dreadful statue of Achilles.  Really, the things that go on in front of that work of art are quite appalling. The police should interfere.  At luncheon I saw by the glare in his eye that he was going to propose again, and I just managed to check him in time by assuring him that I was a bimetallist. Fortunately I don’t know what bimetallism means. And I don’t believe anybody else does either. But the observation crushed Tommy for ten minutes. ”

“He looked quite shocked. And then Tommy is so annoying in the way he proposes. If he proposed at the top of his voice, I should not mind so much.  That might produce some effect on the public. But he does it in a horrid confidential way. When Tommy wants to be romantic he talks to one just like a doctor.  I am very fond of Tommy, but his methods of proposing are quite out of date. I wish, Gertrude, you would speak to him, and tell him that once a week is quite often enough to propose to any one, and that it should always be done in a manner that attracts some attention.

lady chiltern.
Dear Mabel, don’t talk like that.  Besides, Robert thinks very highly of Mr. Trafford.  He believes he has a brilliant future before him.

mabel chiltern.
Oh! I wouldn’t marry a man with a future before him for anything under the sun.”

“lady chiltern. Mabel!

mabel chiltern. I know, dear. You married a man with a future, didn’t you? But then Robert was a genius, and you have a noble, self-sacrificing character.  You can stand geniuses. I have no character at all, and Robert is the only genius I could ever bear. As a rule, I think they are quite impossible. Geniuses talk so much, don’t they? Such a bad habit! And they are always thinking about themselves, when I want them to be thinking about me. I must go round now and rehearse at Lady Basildon’s.  You remember, we are having tableaux, don’t you?  The Triumph of something, I don’t know what!  I hope it will be triumph of me. Only triumph I am really interested in at present. ”