I can’t concentrate my attention in the least; I have been glancing at “The Yellow Book.” JUSTINA. Hark! what’s that? MRS. EMPTAGE. I don’t hear anything. JUSTINA. It _is_ somebody! [HORTON, _a manservant, appears_. HORTON. Mrs. Quinton Twelves. MRS. EMPTAGE _struggles to her feet as_ MRS. QUINTON TWELVES _enters_. HORTON _retires_. KATE TWELVES _is a lively, handsome young woman, brightly dressed_. JUSTINA AND MRS. EMPTAGE. [_Throwing themselves upon her._] Kitty! MRS. QUINTON TWELVES. [_Kissing them._] Well, well, well, well! JUSTINA. Is it over? MRS. QUINTON TWELVES. Not quite; that is, it wasn’t when I came away. It’s all over by now, I expect. MRS. EMPTAGE. [_Hysterically._] Oh, Kitty——! MRS. QUINTON TWELVES. Sssh, sssh! everything has gone swimmingly, I tell you. JUSTINA. For Theophila? MRS. QUINTON TWELVES. Of course, for Theophila. MRS. EMPTAGE. [_Sinking back on to the settee._] I felt sure it would. JUSTINA. But what was happening when you left? MRS. QUINTON TWELVES. The dear old judge was just beginning to deliver his decision—his judgment. JUSTINA. Oh, how _could_ you come away then? MRS. QUINTON TWELVES. Certainly, it was a wrench. Only, Theo wrote little notes to Sir Fletcher Portwood and to Claude and me. [_Taking a screw of paper from her glove._] Here’s mine. [_Reading._] “I won’t have anybody I am fond of, except my husband, in Court at the finish. They tell me they are sure I am cleared, but it frightens me to think you are all _waiting_. Go to mother’s.” MRS. EMPTAGE. [_Taking the note._] My poor child! [_Reading it._] “... they are sure I am cleared....” ’Tina, she’s cleared! MRS. QUINTON TWELVES. Cleared! I wish you could have heard Sir John Clarkson’s opening speech for Theophila this morning. There was quite a murmur of approval when he sat down. JUSTINA. He let that wretch, Mrs. Jack Allingham, have it—eh? He did! MRS. QUINTON TWELVES. He said that a morbidly jealous wife is one of the saddest spectacles the world presents; but that when her jealousy leads her to attempt to blacken the reputation, the hitherto spotless reputation, of another woman—in this instance, a young lady more happily married than herself—then that jealous wife becomes a positive danger to society. MRS. EMPTAGE.