_At the sound of the closing of the door_, _Fanny looks up_. _She goes to the door through which Vernon has just passed_, _listens a moment_, _then returns_. _Bennet calmly finishes the drawing of the curtains_. _Then he_, _too_, _crosses slowly till he and Fanny are facing one another across the centre of the room_. FANNY. Well, what are you going to do? BENNET. My duty! FANNY. What’s that? Something unpleasant, I know. I can bet my bottom dollar. BENNET. That, my girl, will depend upon you. FANNY. How upon me? BENNET. Whether you prove an easy or a difficult subject. To fit you for your position, a certain amount of training will, I fancy, be necessary. FANNY. Training! I’m to be—[_She draws herself up_.] Are you aware who I am? BENNET. Oh yes. _And_ who you were. His lordship, I take it, would hardly relish the discovery that he had married his butler’s niece. He might consider the situation awkward. FANNY. And who’s going to train me? BENNET. I am. With the assistance of your aunt and such other members of your family as I consider can be trusted. FANNY [_for a moment she is speechless_, _then she bursts out_]. That ends it! I shall tell him! I shall tell him this very moment. [_She sweeps towards the door_.] BENNET. At this moment you will most likely find his lordship in his bath. FANNY. I don’t care! Do you think—do you think for a moment that I’m going to allow myself—I, Lady Bantock, to be—[_Her hand upon the door_.] I shall tell him, and you’ll only have yourself to blame. He loves me. He loves me for myself. I shall tell him the whole truth, and ask him to give you all the sack. BENNET. You’re not forgetting that you’ve already told him _once_ who you were? [_It stops her_. _What she really did was to leave the marriage arrangements in the hands of her business manager_, _George P. Newte_. _As agent for a music-hall star_, _he is ideal_, _but it is possible that in answering Lord Bantock’s inquiries concerning Fanny’s antecedents he may not have kept strictly to the truth_.] FANNY. I never did. I’ve never told him anything about my family. BENNET. Curious. I was given to understand it was rather a classy affair. FANNY. I can’t help what other people may have done. Because some silly idiot of a man may possibly—[_She will try a new tack_. _She leaves the door and comes to him_.] Uncle, dear, wouldn’t it be simpler for you all to go away? He’s awfully fond of me. He’ll do anything I ask him. I could merely say that I didn’t like you and get him to pension you off. You and aunt could have a little roadside inn somewhere—with ivy. BENNET. Seeing that together with the stables and the garden there are twenty-three of us— FANNY. No, of course, he couldn’t pension you all. You couldn’t expect—