_Culch._ (_breathing hard_). Your feelings have apparently undergone a sudden change--quite recently! _Miss T._ Well, no, the change dates back considerable--ever since we were at the Villa d'Este. Only, I like Mr. PODBURY pretty well, and I allowed he ought to have fair play, so I concluded I'd keep you around so you shouldn't get a chance of spoiling your perfectly splendid act of self-denial--and I guess I've _kept_ you around pretty much all the time! _Culch._ (_bitterly_). In other words, you have behaved like a heartless coquette! _Miss T._ You may put it at that if you like. Maybe it wouldn't have been just the square thing to do if you'd been a different sort of man--but you wanted to be taught that you couldn't have all the fun of flirtation on _your_ side, and I wasn't afraid the emotional strain was going to shatter you up to any serious extent. Now it's left off amusing me, and I guess it's time to stop. I'm as perfectly aware as I can be that you've been searching around for some way of getting out of it this long while back--so there's no use of your denying you'll be real enchanted to get your liberty again! _Culch._ I may return your charming candour by admitting that my--er--dismissal will be--well, not wholly without its consolations. _Miss T._ Then _that's_ all right! And if you'll be obliging enough to hunt up my Poppa and send him along, I guess I can dispense with your further escort, and you can commence those consolations right away. _Culch._ (_alone_). The little vixen! Saw I was getting tired of it, and took care to strike first. Clever--but a trifle crude. But I'm free now. Unfortunately my freedom comes too late. PODBURY's _Titania_ is much too enamoured of those ass's ears of his--How the brute will chuckle when he hears of this! But he won't hear of it from _me_. I'll go in and pack and be off to-morrow morning before he's up! _Next Morning. In the Hall of the Grand Hotel Dandolo._ _The German Porter_ (_a stately person in a gold-laced uniform and a white waistcoat, escaping from importunate visitors_). In von momendt, Matam, I attend to you. You want a larcher roûm, Sare? You address ze manager, blease. Your dronks, Laties? I haf zem brod down, yes. _A Lady_. Oh, Porter, we want a gondola this afternoon to go to the Lido, and _do_ try if you can get us BEPPO--that _nice_ gondolier, you know, we had yesterday! _The Porter_. Ach! I do nod know _any_ nah-ice gondolier--zey are oal--I dell you, if you lif viz zem ade mons as me, you cot your troat--yes! _Another Lady_. Porter, can you tell me the name of the song that man is singing in the barge there? _Porter_. I gannot dell you ze name--pecause zey sing always ze same ting! _A Helpless Man in knickerbockers_ (_drifting in at the door_). Here, I say. We engaged rooms here by telegram from Florence. What am I to give these fellows from the station? _Combien_, you know!