PART V

HARRIET: Are you happy?

SERENA: What an extraordinary question! Why shouldn’t I be?

HARRIET: I have no way of knowing. I merely asked if you were.

SERENA: You are quite irrepressible, Harriet.

HARRIET: Is it offensive to question the happiness of those one is fond of?

SERENA: No, not offensive. Just a little startling perhaps.

HARRIET: Why startling?

SERENA: Because it gives a jolt to complacency, I suppose. A sudden query flung at random can pierce habitual armor.

—Noël Coward, Quadrille, act 1, scene 2