_SCENE: Sitting-room at 55 Acacia Avenue. The folding doors between front and back parlour are opened, with red curtains looped up. The front parlour, a glimpse of which is visible between curtains, is in full light and a corner of the piano can be seen. The furniture in this room is of the imitation Sheraton variety. There is an ornamental overmantel with photographs and vases, and a marble clock in the middle of the mantelpiece._ _Someone is playing the piano, and LILY, standing beside it, is singing in a sweet but rather weak voice, "Sing me to sleep." No one is in the back parlour, but through the curtains can be seen MORTON LESLIE, lolling on mantelpiece; SYBIL FROST, a pretty fair-haired girl, much given to laughing at everything; PERCY MASSEY, a good-looking, somewhat weak youth of perhaps twenty-one or twenty-two, sitting very close to SYBIL, and TENNANT, standing in the bay window._ _CHARLEY comes in quietly through the side door into the back parlour during the singing. When LILY comes to the refrain of the song, everyone except CHARLEY joins in. He stays in the back parlour and sitting down in the shadow, lights a cigarette. LILY sits down amid a good deal of clapping and words of admiration._ SYBIL. I do love that song. PERCY. Now you sing something. SYBIL. [_with a giggle._] I couldn't really--you know I couldn't. PERCY. Oh, yes, you can--that nice little coon thing you sang at the Richards. SYBIL. I've got a cold. MAGGIE. [_crossing from piano._] Of course you have. SYBIL. [_laughing._] But it's quite true. Really. And I couldn't really sing after Mrs. Wilson. LILY. Sybil! Do sing, _please._ LESLIE. We're all waiting, Miss Frost. SYBIL. Oh, please--I can't. Let someone else sing first. _MAGGIE comes to the doorway and catches sight of CHARLEY. She comes in. In the front parlour SYBIL can be seen still resisting, while LILY, LESLIE, and PERCY MASSEY beseech her._ MAGGIE. You here--all alone? CHARLEY. 'Um. MAGGIE. What's the matter? CHARLEY. Nothing. MAGGIE. Why didn't you come into the front room? CHARLEY. I can hear quite as well here. MAGGIE. Got the hump? CHARLEY. What for? Head's a bit nasty, so I'm smoking it off. MAGGIE. It isn't that--it's all this about Tennant. CHARLEY. [_irritably._] I'm not grieving over him, if that's what you mean. MAGGIE. As if I did! and as if you'd confess if you were. Are you sick of everything? CHARLEY. Sick! I'd cut the whole beastly show tomorrow if-- [_He stops suddenly._] _LILY'S voice can be heard distinctly from the front room._ LILY. Well, we'll ask Mr. Tennant to sing first. SYBIL. Oh, I can't sing, really-- CHARLEY. Why doesn't the girl sing when she's asked? MAGGIE. She says she has a cold. [_She laughs a little._] CHARLEY. Rot! Affectation, I call it. MAGGIE. Percy's awfully smitten, isn't he? CHARLEY. [_surprised._] With her? MAGGIE. Of course. But you haven't noticed that. Lily's been arranging it. CHARLEY. But he's such a kid.