[_JACKIE comes downstairs timorously; her expression is dismal, to say the least of it. She looks miserably out of the window at the pouring rain, then, assuming an air of spurious bravado, she helps herself to some breakfast and sits down and looks at it. After one or two attempts to eat it, she bursts into tears._ [_SANDY opens the library door a crack, and peeps out. JACKIE, seeing the door move, screams. SANDY re-enters._ JACKIE: Oh, it’s only you—you frightened me! SANDY: What’s the matter? JACKIE (_sniffing_): Nothing. SANDY: I say, don’t cry. JACKIE: I’m not crying. SANDY: You were—I heard you. JACKIE: It’s this house. It gets on my nerves. SANDY: I don’t wonder—after last night. JACKIE: What were you doing in the library just now? SANDY: Hiding. JACKIE: Hiding? SANDY: Yes; I didn’t want to run up against any of the family. JACKIE: I wish I’d never come. I had horrible nightmares with all those fearful dragons crawling across the wall. SANDY: Dragons? JACKIE: Yes; I’m in a Japanese room—everything in it’s Japanese, even the bed. SANDY: How awful! JACKIE: I believe they’re all mad, you know. SANDY: The Blisses? JACKIE: Yes—they must be. SANDY: I’ve been thinking that too. JACKIE: Do you suppose they know they’re mad? SANDY: No; people never do. JACKIE: It was Mr. Bliss asked me down, and he hasn’t paid any attention to me at all. I went into his study soon after I arrived yesterday, and he said, “Who the hell are you?” SANDY: Didn’t he remember? JACKIE: He did afterwards; then he brought me down to tea and left me. SANDY: Are you really engaged to Simon? JACKIE (_bursting into tears again_): Oh, no—I hope not! SANDY: You were, last night. JACKIE: So were you—to Sorel. SANDY: Not properly. We talked it over. JACKIE: I don’t know what happened to me. I was in the garden with Simon, and he was being awfully sweet, and then he suddenly kissed me, and rushed into the house and said we were engaged—and that hateful Judith asked me to make him happy! SANDY: That’s exactly what happened to me and Sorel. Judith gave us to one another before we knew where we were. JACKIE: How frightful! SANDY: I like Sorel, though; she was jolly decent about it afterwards. JACKIE: I think she’s a cat. SANDY: Why? JACKIE: Look at the way she lost her temper over that beastly game. SANDY: All the same, she’s better than the others. JACKIE: That wouldn’t be very difficult. SANDY: Hic! JACKIE: I beg your pardon? SANDY (_abashed_): I say—I’ve got hiccoughs. JACKIE: Hold your breath. SANDY: It was because I bolted my breakfast. (_He holds his breath._) JACKIE: Hold it as long as you can. [_There is a pause._ SANDY (_letting his breath go with a gasp_): I can’t any more—hic! JACKIE: Eat a lump of sugar. SANDY (_taking one_): I’m awfully sorry. JACKIE: I don’t mind—but it’s a horrid feeling, isn’t it? SANDY: Horrid—hic! JACKIE (_conversationally_): People have died from hiccoughs, you know.