RICHARDSON, fixed by Amy’s eye, ‘No, ma’am--I meant no harm, ma’am.’ AMY. ‘I am not blaming _you_. Can you remember how often she has dined here?’ RICHARDSON. ‘Well can I remember. Three times last week.’ AMY. ‘Three times in one week, monstrous.’ RICHARDSON, with her gown to her eyes, ‘Yes, ma’am; I see it now.’ AMY, considering and pouncing, ‘Do you think she is an adventuress?’ RICHARDSON. ‘What’s that?’ AMY. ‘Does she smoke cigarettes?’ RICHARDSON, rather spiritedly, ‘No, she don’t.’ AMY, taken aback, ‘Not an adventuress.’ She wishes Ginevra were here to help her. She draws upon her stock of knowledge. ‘Can she be secretly married to him? A wife of the past turned up to blackmail him? That’s very common.’ RICHARDSON. ‘Oh, ma’am, you are terrifying me.’ AMY. ‘I wasn’t talking to you. You may go. Stop. How long had she been here before I came?’ RICHARDSON. ‘She--Her what you are speaking about--’ AMY. ‘Come, I must know.’ The terrible admission refuses to pass Richardson’s lips, and of a sudden Amy has a dark suspicion. ‘Has she gone! Is she here now?’ RICHARDSON. ‘It was just a chop. What makes you so grudging of a chop?’ AMY. ‘I don’t care what they ate. Has she gone?’ RICHARDSON. ‘Oh, ma’am.’ The little maid, bearing the dishes, backs to the door, opens it with her foot, and escapes from this terrible visitor. The drawn curtains attract Amy’s eagle eye, and she looks behind them. There is no one there. She pulls open the door of the cupboard and says firmly, ‘Come out.’ No one comes. She peeps into the cupboard and finds it empty. A cupboard and no one in it. How strange. She sits down almost in tears, wishing very much for the counsel of Ginevra. Thus Steve finds her when he returns. STEVE. ‘I’m awfully glad, Alice, that you--’ He stops abruptly at sight of a strange lady. As for Amy, the word ‘Alice’ brings her to her feet. AMY. ‘Sir.’ A short remark but withering. STEVE. ‘I beg your pardon. I thought--the fact is that I expected--You see you are a stranger to me--my name is Rollo--you are not calling on me, are you?’ Amy inclines her head in a way that Ginevra and she have practised. Then she flings back her cloak as suddenly as an expert may open an umbrella. Having done this she awaits results. Steve, however, has no knowledge of how to play his part; he probably favours musical comedy. He says lamely: ‘I still think there must be some mistake.’ AMY, in italics, ‘There is no mistake.’ STEVE. ‘Then is there anything I can do for you?’ AMY, ardently, ‘You can do so much.’ STEVE. ‘Perhaps if you will sit down--’ Amy decides to humour him so far. She would like to sit in the lovely stage way, when they know so precisely where the chair is that they can sit without a glance at it. But she dare not, though Ginevra would have risked it. Steve is emboldened to say: ‘By the way, you have not told me _your_ name.’ AMY, nervously, ‘If you please, do you mind my not telling it?’