LADY BRITOMART (coming impetuously between Undershaft and the deck chair). Andrew: you shouldnt have let me see this place. UNDERSHAFT. Why, my dear? LADY BRITOMART. Never mind why: you shouldnt have: thats all. To think of all that (indicating the town) being yours! and that you have kept it to yourself all these years! UNDERSHAFT. It does not belong to me. I belong to it. It is the Undershaft inheritance. LADY BRITOMART. It is not. Your ridiculous cannons and that noisy banging foundry may be the Undershaft inheritance; but all that plate and linen, all that furniture and those houses and orchards and gardens belong to us. They belong to m e: they are not a man's business. I wont give them up. You must be out of your senses to throw them all away; and if you persist in such folly, I will call in a doctor. UNDERSHAFT (stooping to smell the bouquet). Where did you get the flowers, my dear? LADY BRITOMART. Your men presented them to me in your William Morris Labor Church. CUSINS (springing up). Oh! It needed only that. A Labor Church! LADY BRITOMART. Yes, with Morris's words in mosaic letters ten feet high round the dome. NO MAN IS GOOD ENOUGH TO BE ANOTHER MAN'S MASTER. The cynicism of it! UNDERSHAFT. It shocked the men at first, I am afraid. But now they take no more notice of it than of the ten commandments in church. LADY BRITOMART. Andrew: you are trying to put me off the subject of the inheritance by profane jokes. Well, you shant. I dont ask it any longer for Stephen: he has inherited far too much of your perversity to be fit for it. But Barbara has rights as well as Stephen. Why should not Adolphus succeed to the inheritance? I could manage the town for him; and he can look after the cannons, if they are really necessary. UNDERSHAFT. I should ask nothing better if Adolphus were a foundling. He is exactly the sort of new blood that is wanted in English business. But hes not a foundling; and theres an end of it. CUSINS (diplomatically). Not quite. (They all turn and stare at him. He comes from the platform past the shed to Undershaft.) I think -- Mind! I am not committing myself in any way as to my future course -- but I think the foundling difficulty can be got over. UNDERSHAFT. What do you mean? CUSINS. Well, I have something to say which is in the nature of a confession. SARAH. Confession! LADY BRITOMART. Confession! BARBARA. Confession! STEPHEN. Confession! LOMAX. Oh I say! CUSINS. Yes, a confession. Listen, all. Until I met Barbara I thought myself in the main an honorable truthful man, because I wanted the approval of my conscience more than I wanted anything else. But the moment I saw Barbara, I wanted her far more than the approval of my conscience. LADY BRITOMART. Adolphus! CUSINS. It is true. You accused me yourself, Lady Brit, of joining the Army to worship Barbara; and so I did. She bought my soul like a flower at a street corner; but she bought it for herself. UNDERSHAFT. What! Not for Dionysos or another? CUSINS. Dionysos and all the others are in herself. I adored what was divine in her, and was therefore a true worshipper. But I was romantic about her too. I thought she was a woman of the people, and that a marriage with a professor of Greek would be far beyond the wildest social ambitions of her rank LADY BRITOMART. Adolphus!! LOMAX. Oh I s a y!!! CUSINS. When I learnt the horrible truth LADY BRITOMART. What do you mean by the horrible truth, pray? CUSINS. That she was enormously rich; that her grandfather was an earl; that her father was the Prince of Darkness -- UNDERSHAFT. Chut! CUSINS. -- and that I was only an adventurer trying to catch a rich wife, then I stooped to deceive her about my birth. BARBARA. Dolly! LADY BRITOMART. Your birth! Now Adolphus, dont dare to make up a wicked story for the sake of these wretched cannons. Remember: I have seen photographs of your parents; and the Agent General for South Western Australia knows them personally and has assured me that they are most respectable married people. CUSINS. So they are in Australia; but here they are outcast Their marriage is legal in Australia, but not in England. My mother is my father's deceased wife's sister; and in this island I am consequently a foundling. (Sensation.) Is the subterfuge good enough, Machiavelli? UNDERSHAFT (thoughtfully). Biddy: this may be a way out of the difficulty. LADY BRITOMART. Stuff! A man cant make cannons any the better for being his own cousin instead of his proper self (she sits down in the deck chair with a bounce that empresses her downright contempt for their casuistry) UNDERSHAFT (to Cusins). You are an educated man. That is against the tradition. CUSINS. Once in ten thousand times it happens that the schoolboy is a born master of what they try to teach him. Greek has not destroyed my mind: it has nourished it. Besides, I did not learn it at an English public school. UNDERSHAFT. Hm! Well, I cannot afford to be too particular: you have cornered the foundling market. Let it pass. You are eligible, Euripides: you are eligible. BARBARA (coming from the platform and interposing between Cusins and Undershaft). Dolly: yesterday morning, when Stephen told us all about the tradition, you became very silent; and you have been strange and excited ever since. Were you thinking of your birth then? CUSINS. When the finger of Destiny suddenly points at a man in the middle of his breakfast, it makes him thoughtful. (Barbara turns away sadly and stands near her mother, listening perturbedly.) UNDERSHAFT. Aha! You have had your eye on the business, my young friend, have you? CUSINS. Take care! There is an abyss of moral horror between me and your accursed aerial battleships. UNDERSHAFT. Never mind the abyss for the present. Let us settle the practical details and leave your final decision open. You know that you will have to change your name. Do you object to that? CUSINS. Would any man named Adolphus -- any man called Dolly! -- object to be called something else? UNDERSHAFT. Good. Now, as to money! I propose to treat you handsomely from the beginning. You shall start at a thousand a year. CUSINS (with sudden heat, his spectacles twinkling smith mischief). A thousand! You dare offer a miserable thousand to the son-in-law of a millionaire! No, by Heavens, Machiavelli! you shall not cheat m e. You cannot do without me; and I can do without you. I must have two thousand five hundred a year for two years. At the end of that time, if I am a failure, I go. But if I am a success, and stay on, you must give me the other five thousand. UNDERSHAFT. What other five thousand? CUSINS. To make the two years up to five thousand a year. The two thousand five hundred is only half pay in case I should turn out a failure. The third year I must have ten per cent on the profits. UNDERSHAFT (taken aback). Ten per cent! Why, man, do you know what my profits are? CUSINS. Enormous, I hope: otherwise I shall require twentyfive per cent. UNDERSHAFT. But, Mr. Cusins, this is a serious matter of business. You are not bringing any capital into the concern. CUSINS. What! no capital! Is my mastery of Greek no capital? Is my access to the subtlest thought, the loftiest poetry yet attained by humanity, no capital? My character! my intellect! my life! my career! what Barbara calls my soul! are these no capital? Say another word; and I double my salary. UNDERSHAFT. Be reasonable-- CUSINS (peremptorily). Mr. Undershaft: you have my terms. Take them or leave them. UNDERSHAFT (recovering himself). Very well. I note your terms; and I offer you half. CUSINS (disgusted). Half! UNDERSHAFT (firmly). Half. CUSINS. You call yourself a gentleman; and you offer me half!! UNDERSHAFT. I do not call myself a gentleman; but I offer you half. CUSINS. This to your future partner! your successor! your son-in-law! BARBARA. You are selling your own soul, Dolly, not mine. Leave me out of the bargain, please. UNDERSHAFT. Come! I will go a step further for Barbara's sake. I will give you three fifths; but that is my last word.