SCENE I.--_Terrace in front of quaint old country house._ VIOLA TRAVERS _and_ MURIEL VANE _on garden-chairs._ VIOLA _is twenty, dark-eyed, and animated; she holds a scarlet parasol._ MURIEL _is eighteen; she has very fair hair, parted with puritanical precision; the naïve innocence of her manner is not without a suggestion of artistic premeditation._ _Muriel_ (_embroidering_). It is a marvel to me, VIOLA, that you can ever have a discontented moment in a house so Elizabethan as this. _Viola._ It _is_ lovely, MURIEL; a background for mystery and romance. And I have no romance. I have everything else; but I have not a romance. _Muriel._ You have ALBERT. _Viola._ You know that ALBERT is not a romance. _Muriel._ Once---- _Viola._ Ah, when everyone opposed our marriage. I married him for love, and because he was poor and "unsuitable." How could I know that his uncle would die and leave him money and a country house? Everything has turned out so well! It is rather hard to have made "a good match," as they say, without intending it. Of course, I never reproach him. _Muriel._ No; you have been very nice about it. _Viola._ ALBERT is perfectly happy, playing at being a country gentleman. He was so amazed to find there were real ducks and fowls in the country--and buttercups! He tells me everything. He boasts we tell each other everything. Oh! I should _so_ like to have some little thing to conceal from him--some secret, just for fun! Of course I should tell him all about it afterwards, you know. [Illustration: "Enter Alan Roy."] _Muriel._ I am sure you would, dear. You have dropped your handkerchief. (MURIEL _picks up handkerchief, book, and paper-knife, and gives them to_ VIOLA.) _Viola._ Dear MURIEL, it is so nice to have you here. You are so calm, and soothing, and decorative, and you never take anyone away from anyone else! _Muriel._ I think I _have_ been rather unfortunate lately, VIOLA. No one seems to like me but middle-aged married men--often, too, with whiskers! _Viola._ You mean poor Mr. AVERIDGE? He has been married so long that he has forgotten all about it. To-night CLAUDE MIGNON is coming to stay with us. He is the most accomplished idiot in London. He sings, plays, paints, plays games, flirts--I think his flirting, though, has rather gone off. It is getting mechanical. By the way, have you an ideal, MURIEL? I wonder what is your ideal? _Muriel_ (_promptly and cheerfully_). A man past his first youth, who has suffered; with iron-grey hair and weary eyes, who knows everything about life and could guide me, and would do exactly what I told him. _Viola._ And _mine_ is a young man of genius, just beginning life, with the world before him, who would look up to me as an inspiration--a guiding star! _Muriel._ You have dropped your handkerchief again, VIOLA. Who is this coming out? _Viola._ It is only Dr. ROBERTS. He has been to see JANE, the housemaid. She has been rather ill. _Muriel._ I suppose she had a housemaid's knee.