- Logan: Modern woman has disowned womanhood but refuses man's obligations. She demands freedom but won't accept responsibility. She insists upon time to develop her personality, and she spends it in cogitating on which part of her body to paint next.
- Leslie: You're much too nice to turn me out.
- Logan: Nice! My dear young lady, you don't know me. The trouble with me is that I'm weak. A charming young girl like you can put anything over on me in five minutes. But at least I know my weakness, so I force myself to be rude. Sometimes even brutal!
- [Leslie starts backing Logan into a corner]
- Leslie: You do like talking about yourself, don't you?
- Logan: Why... yes... most men do. But at least they know the truth about themselves. Women don't. They only know the truth about each other.
- Logan: Modern woman has no loyalty, decency, or justice; no endurance, reticence, or self-control; no affection, fine feelings, or mercy. In short, she is unprincipled, relentless, and exacting; idle, unproductive, and tedious; unimaginative, humorless, and vain; vindictive, undignified, and weak. And the sooner man takes out his whip again, the better for sanity and progress.
- Logan: We have ample opportunities in this court for learning what women mean, or what they mean they mean if in these days they mean anything at all.
- Lord Steele: I'm appalled to think that my granddaughter should leave this house at nine in the evening and return at nine in the morning.
- Jefferies: You know perfectly well, there are some girls you can't trust to go out and post a letter, but Miss Leslie you can trust to the North Pole.
- Lord Steele: Isn't it my duty to ask her for a full account of her doings?
- Jefferies: Well look, Tom, you're not a prying, meddlesome judge - you're an adoring grandpa.
- [Lord Steele chuckles]
- Logan: Think back to that sacred ceremony. There she stood... an innocent girl about to face the most perilous moment in her life.
- Lord Mere: Look here, Logan, you've got this slightly mixed. She's not an innocent girl. Before she married me, she was divorced from Lord Lauderdale... trains race hoses.
- Logan: Oh.
- Lord Mere: Uh huh, and you can say "Oh!" again. Before she married Lord Lauderdale, she was divorced from the Baron de Brussac who makes an inferior grade of brandy.
- Logan: She's a French woman?
- Lord Mere: An American. Her first husband was called Wild Man Cavanaugh - a professional wrestler by trade. She got rid of him at Reno.
- Logan: She's impossible! Four marriages, and she's so young.
- Lord Mere: Who said she was so young?
- Logan: Uh, you did, didn't you?
- Lord Mere: Ah hah. As a matter of fact, she looks young - enchantingly so. But, she's a serpent, you know... a viper. Coils herself about the heart of an innocent man and then strikes. I must get rid of her or face certain ruin.
- Lord Mere: What's your opinion of women, Peters?
- Peters, Club Attendant: Well, me lord, they have their uses as we know, but as to consulting with them, as you might say, I've only dabbled with them.
- Lord Mere: Well, why don't we leave it at that? Women are a menace... a menace, Peters. Look at Eden.
- Peters, Club Attendant: What, the foreign secretary, sir?
- Lord Mere: No, you fool. The Garden of Eden - Adam and Eve. You know the story?
- Peters, Club Attendant: Well, yes, I remember... but it was a little bit before my time.
- Lord Mere: Well, it's still going on. The woman leads the man up the garden path and leaves him in the lurch for a snake in the grass.
- Logan: Do you mind telling me this morning what your name is?
- Leslie: Leslie.
- Logan: What Leslie?
- Leslie: What do you mean, what Leslie? Leslie's my Christian name.
- Logan: Oh, I say... odd.
- Leslie: What's yours?
- Logan: ...Everard.
- [Pausing and mumbling quietly]
- Leslie: What?
- Logan: Everard!
- Leslie: ...Incredible.
- Lord Steele: You've been messing this paper about. Been trying to do the crossword puzzle.
- Jefferies: I don't read your paper. I have my own, and you know it.
- Lord Steele: Altogether, I know too much about you.
- Jefferies: Then I had better go, altogether.
- Lord Steele: That is exactly what I wanted to tell you.
- Leslie: But aren't you being a little cynical grandpa?
- Lord Steele: I don't think so. And every day I learn things about which even the cleverest grandchildren know nothing at all.
- Leslie: But you don't mean that he might prefer a bad woman to a...
- Lord Steele: Very often... and so do you.
- Leslie: Me?
- Lord Steele: Certainly! What made you play the woman with the past? Because you felt you could wear your imaginary adventures like an alluring costume, didn't you? Things in the past - they were a great success. The danger is that when the costume falls off, the young man may look at you and wonder whatever on earth he saw in such an innocent slip of a girl.
- Leslie: Grandad, what should I do? I love the brute so much.
- Logan: Where is she?
- Logan's office boy: Well, they were here, sir.
- Logan: What do you mean, they? Where was she?
- Logan's office boy: She was two, sir.
- Logan: Now, you... you opened the door and she came in?
- Logan's office boy: They came in sir.
- Logan: What did you ask?
- Logan's office boy: What name, madame?
- Logan: And what did she say?
- Logan's office boy: They said, "Lady Mere."
- Logan: She!
- Logan's office boy: They!
- Logan: One lady said, "Lady Mere."
- Logan's office boy: Two, sir.
- Logan: There were two ladies here?
- Logan's office boy: Two, sir.
- Logan: And two ladies said, "Lady Mere?"
- Logan's office boy: Two, sir.
- Logan: Where are they?
- Logan's office boy: Well, they just disappeared, sir.
- Logan: You better disappear too. Go back to your father and tell him I'm in no mood for a congenital idiot.
- Leslie: And what do you think he said about women?
- Lady Mere: Could have been anything.
- Leslie: He said we were merciless, stupid, brainless and hopeless.
- Lady Mere: You know, he's not very far wrong? Anything else?
- Leslie: Yes. He said we spend half our time wondering what part of our bodies to paint next.
- Lady Mere: Oh, well, now my dear, that is a lie.
- [as she's getting her toenails painted]
- Leslie: Good morning, grandpa.
- Lord Steele: Is it? Where have you been?
- Leslie: Hasn't Jeffries told you?
- Jefferies: I most certainly did tell you. You know perfectly well there was a fog last night and Miss Leslie spent the night at the Royal Parks Hotel.
- Lord Steele: Her father and mother are in India, and I'm responsible for her.
- Jefferies: So am I.
- Lord Steele: You? I'm her grandfather.
- Jefferies: Seems I know her better.
- Leslie: [At the fox hunt at Mere Hall] Who's the man she's talking to?
- Lord Mere: By gad, it's that cad, Limmet.
- Leslie: Well, why a cad?
- Lord Mere: Awful fella. Shoots foxes all the time and rides over hounds half the winter.
- Leslie: And what does he do with his spare time?
- Lord Mere: Makes love to other fellow's wives. But if he thinks he's got a chance with Clare, he's barking up the wrong tree.
- [Switch to Lady Mere telling Limmet she'll meet him somewhere]