Now listen to me. Fond as you are, Paula...

Now listen to me. Fond as you are, Paula, of harking back to your past, there’s one chapter of it you always let alone. I’ve never asked you to speak of it; you’ve never offered to speak of it. I mean the chapter that relates to the time when you were -- like Ellean.

[(She attempts to rise; he restrains her)]

[No, no.]

[Paula: I don’t choose to talk about that time. I won’t satisfy your curiosity.]

Aubrey: My dear Paula, I have no curiosity -- I know what you were at Ellean’s age.

(She looks up)

I’ll tell you. You hadn’t a thought that wasn’t a wholesome one, you hadn’t an impulse that didn’t tend towards good, you never harboured a notion you couldn’t have gossiped about to a parcel of children.

(She makes another effort to rise: he lays his hand lightly on her shoulder. No pause)

And this was a few years back -- there are days now when you look like a schoolgirl -- but think of the difference between the two Paulas. You’ll have to think hard, because after a cruel life one’s perceptions grow a thick skin. But, for God’s sake, do think till you get these two images clearly in your mind, and then ask yourself what sort of a friend such a woman as you are today would have been for the girl of seven or eight years ago.

[Paula: (Rising) How dare you? I could be almost as good a friend to Ellean as her own mother would have been had she lived. I know what you mean. How dare you?]

(She nearly breaks down)

Aubrey: [You say that; very likely you believe it. But you’re blind, Paula;] you’re blind. You! Every belief that a young, pure-minded girls holds sacred -- that you once held sacred -- you now make a target for a jest, a sneer, a paltry cynicism. I tell you, you’re not mistress any longer of your thoughts or your tongue. Why, how often, sitting between you and Ellean, have I seen her cheeks turn scarlet as you’ve rattled off some tale that belongs by right to the club or the smoking room!

[Paula: Oh!]

Aubrey: Have you noticed the blush? If you have, has the cause of it ever struck you? And this is the girl you say you love, I admit that you do love, whose love you expect in return! Oh, Paula, I make the best, the only excuse for you when I tell you you’re blind!

Pinero, Arthur Wing, The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, Oberon Books, 2012, pp. 96.