MRS GEORGE [troubled] You are paining and tiring me with idle questions. You are dragging me back to myself. You are tormenting me with your evil dreams of saints and devils and--what was it?-- [striving to fathom it] the pythoness--the pythoness--[giving it up] I dont understand. I am a woman: a human creature like yourselves. Will you not take me as I am? SOAMES. Yes; but shall we take you and burn you? THE BISHOP. Or take you and canonize you? HOTCHKISS [gaily] Or take you as a matter of course? [Swiftly to the Bishop] We must get her out of this: it's dangerous. [Aloud to her] May I suggest that you shall be Anthony's devil and the Bishop's saint and my adored Polly? [Slipping behind her, he picks up her hand from her lap and kisses it over her shoulder]. MRS GEORGE [waking] What was that? Who kissed my hand? [To the Bishop, eagerly] Was it you? [He shakes his head. She is mortified]. I beg your pardon. THE BISHOP. Not at all. I'm not repudiating that honor. Allow me [he kisses her hand]. MRS GEORGE. Thank you for that. It was not the sexton, was it? SOAMES. I! HOTCHKISS. It was I, Polly, your ever faithful. MRS GEORGE [turning and seeing him] Let me catch you doing it again: thats all. How do you come there? I sent you away. [With great energy, becoming quite herself again] What the goodness gracious has been happening? HOTCHKISS. As far as I can make out, you have been having a very charming and eloquent sort of fit. MRS GEORGE [delighted] What! My second sight! [To the Bishop] Oh, how I have prayed that it might come to me if ever I met you! And now it has come. How stunning! You may believe every word I said: I cant remember it now; but it was something that was just bursting to be said; and so it laid hold of me and said itself. Thats how it is, you see. Edith and Cecil Sykes come in through the tower. She has her hat on. Leo follows. They have evidently been out together. Sykes, with an unnatural air, half foolish, half rakish, as if he had lost all his self-respect and were determined not to let it prey on his spirits, throws himself into a chair at the end of the table near the hearth and thrusts his hands into his pockets, like Hogarth's Rake, without waiting for Edith to sit down. She sits in the railed chair. Leo takes the chair nearest the tower on the long side of the table, brooding, with closed lips. THE BISHOP. Have you been out, my dear? EDITH. Yes. THE BISHOP. With Cecil? EDITH. Yes. THE BISHOP. Have you come to an understanding? No reply. Blank silence. SYKES. You had better tell them, Edie. EDITH. Tell them yourself. The General comes in from the garden. THE GENERAL [coming forward to the table] Can anybody oblige me with some tobacco? Ive finished mine; and my nerves are still far from settled. THE BISHOP. Wait a moment, Boxer. Cecil has something important to tell us.