[_For answer MR. FREEMAN angles for his keys in his hip pocket, catches them with a laborious spasm and throws them on to the table._ MR. FREEMAN: Liqueur. [_The owner of the head comes into the room._ GWEN, _the daughter; twenty-four years old, and very attractive. She comes straight to the table, picks up the keys, and unlocks a cupboard in a handsome sideboard._ MRS. FREEMAN: Shut the door, dear. [_GWEN goes and shuts the door._ It’s cold. [_GWEN returns to the cupboard._ GWEN: Which? MR. FREEMAN: Benedictine.... No. Chartreuse. GWEN: Green? MR. FREEMAN: Yellow.... What’s the time? (_But he gets no answer._) Nobody in this house ever knows what the time is. (_So he looks at his own watch._) _D’Ha!_ He won’t be back to dinner now.... (_He selects a cigar from a box on the table_) ... preposterous. MRS. FREEMAN: You’re worried. MR. FREEMAN: Of course I’m worried ... he left the office three-quarters of an hour too early for lunch, and he never came back at all. I haven’t set eyes on him. MRS. FREEMAN: He came home. MR. FREEMAN: Eh? What excuse did he give? MRS. FREEMAN: I only heard him upstairs in his attic ... playing the piano. MR. FREEMAN: _Playing the piano!!!_ I ask you ... a grown man ... what is ’e? Twenty-six. MRS. FREEMAN: Twenty-eight. MR. FREEMAN: Nonsense. (_Then he considers._) Oh, yes, twenty-eight. He walks calmly out of his office in the City in the middle of the morning, he leaves an afternoon’s work untouched and he comes home and PLAYS THE PIANO. MRS. FREEMAN: He was always fond of music. MR. FREEMAN: _I’m_ fond of music, but if I was to behave like that I’d be playing a barrel organ in a fortnight ... where you going? [_GWEN has given him his liqueur, relocked the cupboard, put the keys back on the table, and is going quietly out of the room; her father’s question is mere family curiosity._ GWEN: Drawing-room--going to read. [_She goes out._ MRS. FREEMAN (_when the door has closed safely_): I’ve got something on my mind, too. MR. FREEMAN: What about? MRS. FREEMAN: About him. MR. FREEMAN: What? [_In answer MRS. FREEMAN goes to a writing-desk. He continues his own train of thought._ He’s not worth a damn in the office. He could be. (_His indignation increases._) He walks in an hour late, he walks out an hour early, and he never walks back at all.... No “whys,” no “wherefores” ... when I think of all that I’ve done for that boy.... (_He becomes conscious that the hand that isn’t holding a cigar is holding a letter_) ... What’s this? MRS. FREEMAN: Smell it. MR. FREEMAN: Filthy ... what’s wrong with it? ... only scent, isn’t it? MRS. FREEMAN: It isn’t Frankie’s writing. [_MR. FREEMAN consults it._ He left it about ... he’s had others like it ... he’s told Rosie to take them straight upstairs to him. MR. FREEMAN: Rosie tell you? MRS. FREEMAN: I’ve noticed.