George Bernard Shaw a penn State Electronic Classics Series Publication

curiously older and harder].
MRS HUSHABYE 
[cheerfully]. Why not, pettikins? Very
few young women can resist Hector. I couldn’t when I was
your age. He is really rather splendid, you know.
ELLIE 
[turning on her]. Splendid! Yes, splendid looking, of
course. But how can you love a liar?
MRS HUSHABYE
. I don’t know. But you can, fortunately.
Otherwise there wouldn’t be much love in the world.
ELLIE
. But to lie like that! To be a boaster! a coward!
MRS HUSHABYE 
[rising in alarm]. Pettikins, none of that,
if you please. If you hint the slightest doubt of Hector’s cour-
age, he will go straight off and do the most horribly danger-
ous things to convince himself that he isn’t a coward. He has
a dreadful trick of getting out of one third-floor window and
coming in at another, just to test his nerve. He has a whole
drawerful of Albert Medals for saving people’s lives.
ELLIE
. He never told me that.
MRS HUSHABYE
. He never boasts of anything he really
did: he can’t bear it; and it makes him shy if anyone else
does. All his stories are made-up stories.
ELLIE 
[coming to her]. Do you mean that he is really brave,
and really has adventures, and yet tells lies about things that
he never did and that never happened?
MRS HUSHABYE
. Yes, pettikins, I do. People don’t have

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58
Heartbreak House
their virtues and vices in sets: they have them anyhow: all
mixed.
ELLIE 
[staring at her thoughtfully]. There’s something odd
about this house, Hesione, and even about you. I don’t know
why I’m talking to you so calmly. I have a horrible fear that
my heart is broken, but that heartbreak is not like what I
thought it must be.
MRS HUSHABYE 
[fondling her]. It’s only life educating you,
pettikins. How do you feel about Boss Mangan now?
ELLIE 
[disengaging herself with an expression of distaste]. Oh,
how can you remind me of him, Hesione?
MRS HUSHABYE
. Sorry, dear. I think I hear Hector com-
ing back. You don’t mind now, do you, dear?
ELLIE
. Not in the least. I am quite cured.
Mazzini Dunn and Hector come in from the hall.
HECTOR 
[as he opens the door and allows Mazzini to pass
in]. One second more, and she would have been a dead
woman!
MAZZINI
. Dear! dear! what an escape! Ellie, my love, Mr
Hushabye has just been telling me the most extraordinary—
ELLIE
. Yes, I’ve heard it [she crosses to the other side of the
room].
HECTOR 
[following her]. Not this one: I’ll tell it to you
after dinner. I think you’ll like it. The truth is I made it up
for you, and was looking forward to the pleasure of telling it
to you. But in a moment of impatience at being turned out
of the room, I threw it away on your father.
ELLIE 
[turning at bay with her back to the carpenter’s bench,
scornfully self-possessed]. It was not thrown away. He believes
it. I should not have believed it.
MAZZINI 
[benevolently]. Ellie is very naughty, Mr
Hushabye. Of course she does not really think that. [He goes
to the bookshelves, and inspects the titles of the volumes].
Boss Mangan comes in from the hall, followed by the captain.
Mangan, carefully frock-coated as for church or for a dirctors’
meeting, is about fifty-five, with a careworn, mistrustful expres-
sion, standing a little on an entirely imaginary dignity, with a
dull complexion, straight, lustreless hair, and features so entirely