PETER. Not dead--what next? CARVE. I am Ilam Carve. HONORIA. (Soothingly.) Poor dear! He's not himself. CARVE. That's just what I am. (Sinks back exhausted.) PETER. (Aside to LOOE.) Is he mad, Father? Nothing but a clerk after all. And yet he takes a private room at the Grand Babylon, and then he refuses a hundred and fifty of the best and goes on like this. And now, blessed if he isn't Ilam Carve! (Laughs.) LOOE. I really think we ought to leave. HONORIA. (To JANET.) He's a little unhinged! But how charming he is. JANET. (Prudently resenting HONORIA'S interest in CARVE.) Yes, he's a little unhinged. And who wouldn't be? PETER. Got 'em--if you ask me! (Moving to leave.) LOOE. (Moving to leave.) Honoria. JANET. (Very soothingly and humouringly to CARVE.) So this is what you call being shy! CARVE. (To JANET, who is now bending over him.) It must be stopped. JANET. (As the others go out; humouring him.) Yes, yes! (Absently in reply to bows and adieux of LOOE, HONORIA, and PETER HORNING.) Good morning! (When they are gone, with a sigh of relief.) Well, it is a mighty queer place! My word, how cold your hands are! (Going quickly to telephone and speaking into telephone.) Please send up two hot-water bottles at once. Yes, hot-water bottles. Never heard of a hot-water bottle before? The Stage is darkened for a few moments to indicate the passage of time. SCENE 2 TIME.--Afternoon, four days later. JANET is dozing in an easy-chair. Enter CARVE in his dressing-gown. JANET. (Starting up.) Mr. Shawn, what are you doing out of bed? After such a dose of flu as you've had! CARVE. I'm doing nothing out of bed. (Twiddles his thumbs.) JANET. But you've no right to be out of bed at all. CARVE. I was afraid I hadn't. But I called and called, and there was no answer. So then I began to argue the point. Why not get up? I'd had a tremendous long sleep. I felt singularly powerful. And I thought you'd gone home. JANET. Nay--that you never did! CARVE. I did, honestly. JANET. Do you mean to say you thought for a single moment I should go home and leave you like that? CARVE. Yes. But of course I thought you might be coming back sooner or later. JANET. Well I never! CARVE. You've scarcely left me for three days and three nights, Mrs. Cannot, so far as I remember. Surely it was natural for me to suppose that you'd gone home to your own affairs. JANET. (Sarcastically.) It didn't occur to you I might have dropped off to sleep? CARVE. Now, don't be angry. I'm only convalescent. JANET. Will you kindly march right back to bed this instant? CARVE. No, I'm dashed if I do! JANET. I beg pardon. CARVE. I say, I'm dashed if I do! I won't stir until I've thanked you. I've been ill I don't know how many times; but this is the first time in my life I've ever enjoyed being ill. D'you know (with an ingenuous smile.) I'd really no idea what nursing was.