_Miss Garnett_: "Oh, when he is calling on her, Kentucky Summers pretends to fly into a rage with her sister, and she pulls her hair down, and slams everything round the room, and scolds, and drinks champagne, and wants him to drink with her, and I don't know what all. The upshot is that he is only too glad to get away." _Miss Ramsey_: "It's rather loathsome, isn't it?" _Miss Garnett_: "It _is_ rather loathsome. But it was in a good cause, and I suppose it was what an actress would think of." _Miss Ramsey_: "An actress?" _Miss Garnett_: "I forgot. The heroine is a distinguished actress, you know, and Kentucky could play that sort of part to perfection. But I don't think a lady would like to cut up, much, in the _best_ cause." _Miss Ramsey_: "Cut up?" _Miss Garnett_: "She certainly frisks about the room a good deal. How delicious these mallows are! Have you ever tried toasting them?" _Miss Ramsey_: "At school. There seems an idea in it. And the hero isn't married. I don't like the notion of a married man." _Miss Garnett_: "Oh, I'm quite sure he isn't married. He's merely engaged. That makes the whole difference from the Peg Woffington story. And there's no portrait, I'm confident, so that you wouldn't have to do that part." _Miss Ramsey_, haughtily: "I don't propose to do _any_ part, if the affair can't be arranged without some such mountebank business!" _Miss Garnett_: "You can manage it, if anybody can. You have so much dignity that you could awe him into doing his duty by a single glance. I wouldn't be in his place!" _Miss Ramsey_: "I shall not give him a glance. I shall not see him when he comes. That will be simpler still." To Nora, at the door: "What is it, Nora?" II NORA, MISS RAMSEY, MISS GARNETT _Nora_: "Mr. Ashley, Miss Ramsey." _Miss Ramsey_, with a severity not meant for Nora: "Ask him to sit down in the reception-room a moment." _Nora_: "Yes, Miss Ramsey." III MISS RAMSEY, MISS GARNETT _Miss Garnett_, rising and seizing Miss Ramsey's hands: "Oh, Isobel! But you will be equal to it! Oh! Oh!" _Miss Ramsey_, with state: "Why are you going, Esther? Sit down."