MRS. JUNO. So he is. What made you think he wasn't? GREGORY. You said your POOR father. MRS. JUNO. Oh, that's a trick of mine. Rather a silly trick, I Suppose; but there's something pathetic to me about men: I find myself calling them poor So-and-So when there's nothing whatever the matter with them. GREGORY [who has listened in growing alarm]. But--I--is?-- wa--? Oh, Lord! MRS. JUNO. What's the matter? GREGORY. Nothing. MRS. JUNO. Nothing! [Rising anxiously]. Nonsense: you're ill. GREGORY. No. It was something about your late husband-- MRS. JUNO. My LATE husband! What do you mean? [clutching him, horror-stricken]. Don't tell me he's dead. GREGORY [rising, equally appalled]. Don't tell me he's alive. MRS. JUNO. Oh, don't frighten me like this. Of course he's alive--unless you've heard anything. GREGORY. The first day we met--on the boat--you spoke to me of your poor dear husband. MRS. JUNO [releasing him, quite reassured]. Is that all? GREGORY. Well, afterwards you called him poor Tops. Always poor Tops, Our poor dear Tops. What could I think? MRS. JUNO [sitting down again]. I wish you hadn't given me such a shock about him; for I haven't been treating him at all well. Neither have you. GREGORY [relapsing into his seat, overwhelmed]. And you mean to tell me you're not a widow! MRS. JUNO. Gracious, no! I'm not in black. GREGORY. Then I have been behaving like a blackguard. I have broken my promise to my mother. I shall never have an easy conscience again. MRS. JUNO. I'm sorry. I thought you knew. GREGORY. You thought I was a libertine? MRS. JUNO. No: of course I shouldn't have spoken to you if I had thought that. I thought you liked me, but that you knew, and would be good. GREGORY [stretching his hands towards her breast]. I thought the burden of being good had fallen from my soul at last. I saw nothing there but a bosom to rest on: the bosom of a lovely woman of whom I could dream without guilt. What do I see now? MRS. JUNO. Just what you saw before. GREGORY [despairingly]. No, no. MRS. JUNO. What else? GREGORY. Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted: Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted. MRS. JUNO. They won't if they hold their tongues. Don't be such a coward. My husband won't eat you. GREGORY. I'm not afraid of your husband. I'm afraid of my conscience. MRS. JUNO [losing patience]. Well! I don't consider myself at all a badly behaved woman; for nothing has passed between us that was not perfectly nice and friendly; but really! to hear a grown-up man talking about promises to his mother!