[_They look at each other for a moment longer, then_ MRS. TWELVES _withdraws her hand, and, after nodding to the others in a scared way, goes out silently_. CLAUDE _follows her_. MRS. CLOYS. [_Sitting on the settee._] Muriel. [MRS. EMPTAGE _comes to her_.] We have been on bad terms for many years; let us have done with it. I suggest mutual concessions to disposition and temper. MRS. EMPTAGE. [_Sitting._] I am sure I have been more than desirous—— MRS. CLOYS. You have brought up your children abominably; that was always our most serious point of dissension—— SIR FLETCHER PORTWOOD. I may remind you, Harriet, that Muriel’s cheerful method of training her children has received my sympathy and sanction. On the death of the late Mr. Emptage—— MRS. EMPTAGE. My poor dear Herbert—— SIR FLETCHER PORTWOOD. It naturally devolved upon me—— MRS. CLOYS. Sssh! SIR FLETCHER PORTWOOD. I am not one of those—— MRS. CLOYS. Sssh, sssh, sssh! MRS. EMPTAGE. Your twenty years of married life may have taught you how to manage a husband, Harriet, but—— SIR FLETCHER PORTWOOD. Heaven has blessed you with no offspring. MRS. EMPTAGE. And the world isn’t all deans, and canons, and bishops and things—— SIR FLETCHER PORTWOOD. A department of society you were thrown headlong into—— MRS. EMPTAGE. By the merest chance, as you well know—— SIR FLETCHER PORTWOOD. Without, I fear, possessing every qualification for the—ah—the exalted station which—which—— MRS. EMPTAGE. And—and—and—— MRS. CLOYS. [_To_ MRS. EMPTAGE.] There, there! Don’t, I say. Have done with it? At any rate, we’re grey-haired women now—I _am_, and you ought to be—— MRS. EMPTAGE. Now, Harriet——! MRS. CLOYS. And judgment has overtaken you—— MRS. EMPTAGE. Judgment! MRS. CLOYS. This terrible calamity that has befallen your girl Theophila. Oh, how is it going to end? MRS. EMPTAGE. My dear Harriet, it has ended. MRS. CLOYS. Has the case——? SIR FLETCHER PORTWOOD. Mrs. Allingham’s petition is dismissed—dismissed. MRS. EMPTAGE. My daughter has emerged triumphantly—— MRS. CLOYS. Thank God! [_Rising._] Muriel——