Well, dear, many a misguided woman has done that before you. AGATHA POSKET. Yes, Charley, but don't you see the consequences? It has thrown everything out. As I am now thirty-one, instead of thirty-six as I ought to be, it stands to reason that I couldn't have been married twenty years ago, which I was. So I have had to fib in proportion. CHARLOTTE. I see--making your first marriage occur only fifteen years ago. AGATHA POSKET. Exactly. CHARLOTTE. Well then, dear, why worry yourself further? AGATHA POSKET. Why, dear, don't you see? If I am only thirty-one now, my boy couldn't have been born nineteen years ago, and if he could, he oughtn't to have been, because, on my own showing, I wasn't married till four years later. Now you see the result! CHARLOTTE. Which is, that that fine strapping young gentleman over there is only fourteen. AGATHA POSKET. Precisely. Isn't it awkward! and his moustache is becoming more and more obvious every day. CHARLOTTE. What does the boy himself believe? AGATHA POSKET. He believes his mother, of course, as a boy should. As a prudent woman, I always kept him in ignorance of his age--in case of necessity. But it is terribly hard on the poor child, because his aims, instincts, and ambitions are all so horribly in advance of his condition. His food, his books, his amusements are out of keeping with his palate, his brain, and his disposition; and with all this suffering--his wretched mother has the remorseful consciousness of having shortened her offspring's life. CHARLOTTE. Oh, come, you haven't quite done that. AGATHA POSKET. Yes, I have--because, if he lives to be a hundred, he must be buried at ninety-five. CHARLOTTE. That's true. AGATHA POSKET. Then, there's another aspect. He's a great favourite with all our friends--women friends especially. Even his little music mistress and the girl-servants hug and kiss him because he's such an engaging boy, and I can't stop it. But it's very awful to see these innocent women fondling a young man of nineteen. CHARLOTTE. The women don't know it. AGATHA POSKET. But they'd like to know it. I mean they ought to know it! The other day I found my poor boy sitting on Lady Jenkins's lap, and in the presence of Sir George. I have no right to compromise Lady Jenkins in that way. And now, Charley, you see the whirlpool in which I am struggling--if you can throw me a rope, pray do. CHARLOTTE. What sort of a man is Mr. Posket, Aggy? AGATHA POSKET. The best creature in the world. He's a practical philanthropist. CHARLOTTE. Um--he's a Police Magistrate, too, isn't he? AGATHA POSKET. Yes, but he pays out of his own pocket half the fines he inflicts. That's why he has had a reprimand from the Home Office for inflicting such light penalties. All our servants have graduated at Mulberry Street. Most of the pictures in the dining-room are genuine Constables. CHARLOTTE. Take my advice--tell him the whole story. AGATHA POSKET. I dare not! CHARLOTTE. Why?