I’ve been lunching with Blenkinsop. I answered about fifty begging letters before I came out this morning. MRS. DOT. [_To_ GERALD.] You’ve not said you’re glad to see me yet. GERALD. I’m not sure that I am, very. MRS. DOT. [_Not at all disconcerted._] Then say you like my frock. GERALD. Yes, it’s very nice. MRS. DOT. Very nice! I should think it was very nice. There’s no one in London who’d venture to wear anything half so outrageous. And as for the hat.... BLENKINSOP. The hat’s hideous. But I suppose it’s fashionable. MRS. DOT. My dear James, where were you educated? BLENKINSOP. At Eton. MRS. DOT. Well, they taught you nothing about clothes. BLENKINSOP. I wish sometimes that nice women wouldn’t get themselves up as if they were no better than they should be. MRS. DOT. Don’t be so absurd. The ideal of a woman who takes any pains about her frocks is to look as like an abandoned hussy as she possibly can. [MRS. DOT _chooses the most comfortable chair in the room_. GERALD. I’m afraid I can’t ask you to sit down. MRS. DOT. Oh, don’t trouble. I’m perfectly capable of doing that of my own accord.... If you think I’m going before you’ve answered a hundred and fifty questions you’re very much mistaken. First, I want to know why you’ve not been near me for the last week? Then why you try to keep me out of the place? And lastly, why you show every desire to get rid of me when I’m here? GERALD. I’ve not seen you because I’ve been uncommonly busy. I said I was not at home because I’m in the worst possible temper. And I want to get rid of you because I’m expecting somebody else. MRS. DOT. I suppose if I were a thoroughly tactful person I should now ring for my carriage? GERALD. I daresay you would ask me to ring for it. MRS. DOT. Well, I shall neither do the one nor the other. In the first place your answers are all nonsense and in the second I want to know who’s coming? If it’s some one I know, I shall stop and say, How d’you do, and if it isn’t I want to see what _it’s_ like. GERALD. I suppose you know I’m perfectly capable of turning you out by main force. MRS. DOT. If you touch me I shall scream. [_She looks quickly at_ FREDDIE _and_ BLENKINSOP, _then gives a smile_. MRS. DOT. Oh, Freddie, I quite forgot. I’ve got a pile of letters that I found on my way out this afternoon. There are three poor clergymen who can’t pay their bills, and there are five elderly spinsters who don’t know which way to turn for their quarter’s rent, and there are seven deserving ladies with a starving husband each and sixteen children. BLENKINSOP. How very immoral! MRS. DOT. It would be much more immoral if they had a starving child each and sixteen husbands. BLENKINSOP. I suppose it’s never occurred to you that you do a great deal more harm than good by your indiscriminate charity? MRS. DOT.