Well, you were wrong. You should immediately have put an end to this intimacy—to use the mildest word for her friendship with Michael. DEAN. Mrs. O’Farrel, is it possible you are speaking of my daughter? MRS. O’FARREL. And it’s your duty to put an end to it at once. I only hope that you may not be too late. DEAN. This—this—this is beyond anything!... Perhaps you will be so good—— MRS. O’FARREL. Now then, Dean, pray don’t lose your temper. It’s neither wise nor becoming, and at our age very bad for the heart. Listen to me quietly for a moment. I refused for a long time to believe any ill of this—er—friendship. I knew Michael to be infatuated with his wife, and Clare to be a healthy-minded girl. But last week Emily Fitzgerald told me she had seen Michael walking in the Stanton Woods with his arm around Clare’s shoulder. She added that the affair was becoming quite notorious in the neighbourhood.... You must act, and act at once. DEAN. Is that all? So you condescend to listen to the tittle-tattle of a notorious old gossip like Emily Fitzgerald? Upon my word I’m ashamed of you! MRS. O’FARREL. Dean! Have you taken leave of your senses? DEAN. I might well put that question to you, Mrs. O’Farrel. But I refrain from vulgar _tu quoque_ repartee. I have no more to say except to warn you that before looking after the morals of my daughter, you had far better look after those of your son. MRS. O’FARREL. My son? DEAN. Precisely—your son. MRS. O’FARREL. What do you mean? DEAN. I and others—unlike yourself, I will not drag in the names of outsiders—have for some time past watched your son and Lady Patricia with grief and dismay. MRS. O’FARREL. Patricia! DEAN. Just now you believed your son had been impertinently taking Clare to task for her charming friendship with Michael Cosway. I am convinced you were mistaken. It was Clare who had been warning your son that his indiscretions were becoming the talk of the place. MRS. O’FARREL. Bill entangled with Patricia! And Clare—_Clare_ preaching propriety! It’s too laughable! A boy’s innocent homage for a woman at least ten years his senior! You’re a very foolish old man. DEAN. Again I put away from me the _tu quoque_ retort.... Add two and two together. I don’t for a moment blame _her_. I can’t find it in my heart to blame her. The dear and beautiful creature is as God made her: exquisitely sensitive, sentimental and infinitely affectionate.... But I warn you, Mrs. O’Farrel, I warn you. MRS. O’FARREL. I refuse to hear another word. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!... And the saddest part of the whole affair is my poor boy’s undoubted affection for your daughter. DEAN. Affection for Clare! I don’t believe it! MRS. O’FARREL. Are you his mother? DEAN. Certainly not!... But I have watched him—with the result that I am convinced of his infatuation for Lady Patricia. MRS. O’FARREL. Fiddle-sticks! DEAN.