(LADY MARY comes in. She is in evening dress. Undoubtedly she meant to sail in, but she forgets, and despite her garments it is a manly entrance. She is properly ashamed of herself. She tries again, and has an encouraging success. She indicates to her sisters that she wishes to be alone with papa.) AGATHA. All right, but we know what it’s about. Come along, Kit. (They go. LADY MARY thoughtlessly sits like a boy, and again corrects herself. She addresses her father, but he is in a brown study, and she seeks to draw his attention by whistling. This troubles them both.) LADY MARY. How horrid of me! LORD LOAM (depressed). If you would try to remember-- LADY MARY (sighing). I do; but there are so many things to remember. LORD LOAM (sympathetically). There are--(in a whisper). Do you know, Mary, I constantly find myself secreting hairpins. LADY MARY. I find it so difficult to go up steps one at a time. LORD LOAM. I was dining with half a dozen members of our party last Thursday, Mary, and they were so eloquent that I couldn’t help wondering all the time how many of their heads he would have put in the bucket. LADY MARY. I use so many of his phrases. And my appetite is so scandalous. Father, I usually have a chop before we sit down to dinner. LORD LOAM. As for my clothes--(wriggling). My dear, you can’t think how irksome collars are to me nowadays. LADY MARY. They can’t be half such an annoyance, father, as--(She looks dolefully at her skirt.) LORD LOAM (hurriedly). Quite so--quite so. You have dressed early to-night, Mary. LADY MARY. That reminds me; I had a note from Brocklehurst saying that he would come a few minutes before his mother as--as he wanted to have a talk with me. He didn’t say what about, but of course we know. (His lordship fidgets.) (With feeling.) It was good of you to tell him, father. Oh, it is horrible to me--(covering her face). It seemed so natural at the time. LORD LOAM (petulantly). Never again make use of that word in this house, Mary. LADY MARY (with an effort). Father, Brocklehurst has been so loyal to me for these two years that I should despise myself were I to keep my--my extraordinary lapse from him. Had Brocklehurst been a little less good, then you need not have told him my strange little secret. LORD LOAM (weakly). Polly--I mean Mary--it was all Crichton’s fault, he-- LADY MARY (with decision). No, father, no; not a word against him though. I haven’t the pluck to go on with it; I can’t even understand how it ever was. Father, do you not still hear the surf? Do you see the curve of the beach? LORD LOAM. I have begun to forget--(in a low voice). But they were happy days; there was something magical about them.