There’s something in these surroundings...

There’s something in these surroundings that makes me feel terribly uncomfortable. Under the brilliant surface I suspect all kinds of ugly and shameful secrets that everyone knows and pretends not to. This is a strange house in which the husband is never seen and Arthur Fenwick, a vulgar sensualist, acts as host; and it’s an attractive spectacle, this painted duchess devouring with her eyes a boy young enough to be her son. And the conversation — I don’t want to seem a prude, I daresay people over here talk more freely than the people I’ve known; but surely there are women who don’t have lovers, there are such things as honour and decency and self-restraint. If Bessie is going to remain over here I wish to God she’d marry her lord at once and get out of it quickly.

For full extended monologue, please refer to clips or the script edition cited here: W. Somerset Maugham, Our Betters, William Heinemann LTD, 1924, p. 88.

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