HE [formally] I am at your service. HER HUSBAND. No hurry. After the theatre will do. HE. We have decided not to go. HER HUSBAND. Indeed! Well, then, shall we adjourn to my snuggery? SHE. You needn't move. I shall go and lock up my diamonds since I'm not going to the theatre. Give me my things. HER HUSBAND [as he hands her the cloud and the mirror] Well, we shall have more room here. HE [looking about him and shaking his shoulders loose] I think I should prefer plenty of room. HER HUSBAND. So, if it's not disturbing you, Rory--? SHE. Not at all. [She goes out]. When the two men are alone together, Bompas deliberately takes the poems from his breast pocket; looks at them reflectively; then looks at Henry, mutely inviting his attention. Henry refuses to understand, doing his best to look unconcerned. HER HUSBAND. Do these manuscripts seem at all familiar to you, may I ask? HE. Manuscripts? HER HUSBAND. Yes. Would you like to look at them a little closer? [He proffers them under Henry's nose]. HE [as with a sudden illumination of glad surprise] Why, these are my poems. HER HUSBAND. So I gather. HE. What a shame! Mrs Bompas has shown them to you! You must think me an utter ass. I wrote them years ago after reading Swinburne's Songs Before Sunrise. Nothing would do me then but I must reel off a set of Songs to the Sunrise. Aurora, you know: the rosy fingered Aurora. They're all about Aurora. When Mrs Bompas told me her name was Aurora, I couldn't resist the temptation to lend them to her to read. But I didn't bargain for your unsympathetic eyes. HER HUSBAND [grinning] Apjohn: that's really very ready of you. You are cut out for literature; and the day will come when Rory and I will be proud to have you about the house. I have heard far thinner stories from much older men. HE [with an air of great surprise] Do you mean to imply that you don't believe me? HER HUSBAND. Do you expect me to believe you? HE. Why not? I don't understand. HER HUSBAND. Come! Don't underrate your own cleverness, Apjohn. I think you understand pretty well. HE. I assure you I am quite at a loss. Can you not be a little more explicit? HER HUSBAND. Don't overdo it, old chap. However, I will just be so far explicit as to say that if you think these poems read as if they were addressed, not to a live woman, but to a shivering cold time of day at which you were never out of bed in your life, you hardly do justice to your own literary powers--which I admire and appreciate, mind you, as much as any man. Come! own up. You wrote those poems to my wife. [An internal struggle prevents Henry from answering]. Of course you did. [He throws the poems on the table; and goes to the hearthrug, where he plants himself solidly, chuckling a little and waiting for the next move].