- Clive Durham: Maurice, I hope nothing is wrong?
- Maurice Hall: Pretty well everything. You would think so.
- Clive Durham: Very well, I'm at your service. My advice there is to sleep here tonight and ask Anne. Where a woman is in question, it's always better to ask another woman.
- Maurice Hall: I'm not here to see Anne.
- [pauses]
- Maurice Hall: I'm in love with Alec Scudder.
- Clive Durham: What a grotesque announcement.
- Maurice Hall: [ironically] Most grotesque. But I felt I should tell you.
- Clive Durham: Maurice, Maurice, we did everything we could when you and I clashed out the subject.
- Maurice Hall: When you brought yourself to kiss my hand.
- Clive Durham: Don't allude to that! Come in here.
- [lowers his voice]
- Clive Durham: I am more sorry for you than I can possibly say and I do, do beg you to resist to return on this obsession.
- Maurice Hall: I don't need advice. I'm flesh and blood Clive, if you'll condescend to such low things. I've shared with Alec.
- Clive Durham: Shared what?
- Maurice Hall: Everything. Alec slept with me in the Russet Room when you and Anne were away.
- Clive Durham: [turns away from him] Oh God.
- Maurice Hall: Also in town.
- Clive Durham: The sole excuse for a relationship between two men is that it remains purely platonic. Surely you agree to that.
- Maurice Hall: I don't know. I've come to tell you what I did.
- Clive Durham: Well, Alec Scudder is in point of fact no longer in my service. In fact, he is no longer in England. He sailed for Buenos Aires this very day.
- Maurice Hall: He didn't. He sacrificed his career for my sake. Without a guarantee. I don't know if that's platonic or not but it's what he did.
- Clive Durham: missed his boat? Maurice, you're going mad! May I ask if you intend...
- Maurice Hall: [interrupts him] No, you may not ask. I told you everything up to this minute, not a word beyond.
- Alec Scudder: Stop with me. Sleep the night with me.
- Maurice Hall: I can't. I've got an engagement. Full business dinner. It's my job. Meet me another evening instead.
- Alec Scudder: I can't come to London again. My father and Mr. Borenius will be passing remarks.
- Maurice Hall: What does it matter if they do?
- Alec Scudder: What does your engagement matter?
- Alec Scudder: Tomorrow's Thursday. Friday's packing. Saturday's Southampton, so it's goodbye, Old England.
- Maurice Hall: You mean that you and I shan't meet again after now?
- Alec Scudder: That's right, you've got it quite correct.
- Maurice Hall: Stay with me.
- Alec Scudder: Stay? Miss my boat? You daft? Of all the bloody rubbish. Order me about again, you would.
- Maurice Hall: It's a chance in a thousand we met. You know it. Why don't you stay?
- Alec Scudder: Stay? With you? How? And where? With your Ma? Oh yeah. What would she say if she saw me? All rough and ugly the way I am. My people wouldn't take to you one bit. I don't blame them, either. And how would you run your job, I'd like to know?
- Maurice Hall: I shall chuck it.
- Alec Scudder: Your job in the City? What gives you money and position? You talk like a man who's never had to earn his living.
- Maurice Hall: You can do anything. Once you know what it is. We can live without money, without people. We can live without position. We're not fools. We're both strong. There'd be some place we could go.
- Alec Scudder: Wouldn't work, Maurice. Be the ruin of
- [pauses; sits down]
- Alec Scudder: us both. Can't you see?
- Alec Scudder: You shouldn't treat me like a dog! You were just amusing yourself. I've never come like that to a gentleman before. You said 'Call me Maurice' but you never even wrote to me. You made a fool of me and I can make you sorry for that!
- Maurice Hall: Let me just have a word with Scudder, here. Something's up at the mission.
- [walks off from his friends to talk to Alec]
- Alec Scudder: "Scudder", is it? "Alec, you're a dear fellow", you said. Are you ashamed to be seen with me? You're not glad, anyway. Don't say you are.
- Maurice Hall: Of course I'm glad.
- Alec Scudder: Then why didn't you come to the boathouse? I waited two night, I got no sleep waiting.
- Alec Scudder: [Writing a letter to Maurice] Pretend to the other gentlemen that you want a stroll. It's easily managed. Then come down to the boathouse. Dear Sir, let me share with you once before leaving Old England if it's not asking too much.
- Lady at Cricket Match: Captain has put himself into bat first. Clive Durham would've never done that.
- Maurice Hall: He is our best man apparently.
- Simcox: A terrible affair about Viscount Risley, Sir. And him a Parliamentary Private Secretary, too. I did read he was at Cambridge.
- [Significant pause]
- Simcox: Like yourself, Sir.
- Clive Durham: You will never mention that subject again, Simcox, while you remain in employment here.
- Maurice Hall: I'm walking on a volcano. He's an uneducated man and he's got me in his power. Will he have a case in court, do you think?
- Lasker-Jones: I'm no lawyer, Mr. Hall. You'd have to consult your solicitor.
- Maurice Hall: How did a country lad like that know? Why did he come to me that one night when I was at my weakest?
- Archie: Oh, cheer up, old man! What's gotten into you?
- Maurice Hall: Would you believe - it's my birthday.
- Risley: Music is the highest of the arts. It needs no reference to the figurative, or the corporeal. It is therefore, of all the arts, the closest to death.
- Maurice Hall: Little girls don't see a great deal.
- Kitty Hall: I see a great deal more than some little boys who think they're little men.