Wilfrid! I want some more teacups. And brush your hair. You’ve made it worse! WILFRID BRUDENELL. I’m afraid I am not quite awake. [_He retires, the rest sit at the tea-table._] IRENE. You make me feel quite old, Leslie--to see you so much a woman. LESLIE. I am trying to be a woman, but I don’t get on very quickly. IRENE. Why try? LESLIE. Because I am ashamed that my husband’s wife should be so insignificant. IRENE. You seem very fond of him. LESLIE. Fond of him! Fond is a poor weak word. If I could realize my dearest desire I would be my husband’s slave. MRS. STONEHAY. All new wives who have money and many domestic servants say that. LESLIE. Ah, but I would, truly. Do you know what it is to suffer keenly from over-kindness? IRENE. I thought that was a malady the Faculty had succeeded in stamping out. LESLIE. I suppose it lingers yet in some odd old-world corners; it is within the crumbling walls of this Villa, for instance. My husband is too devoted to me. I fear to have a wish because I know he cannot rest till it is gratified. If I look here, or there, his dear eyes imitate mine; if I rise, he starts up; if I walk on, he follows me. When he takes my hand he holds it as if it were a flower with a delicate bloom upon it; when he speaks to me he lowers his voice like one whispering into some rare shell that would break from too much sound. And all for one who is half a school-girl and half a woman, and so little of either. [_A man is heard singing a characteristic Italian air to the accompaniment of a mandolin._] MRS. STONEHAY. What’s that? [_LESLIE runs to the balustrade and waves her hand._] LESLIE. That’s Pietro Donigo, one of my husband’s _protégés_. Dunstan wishes him to sing to me every day. MRS. STONEHAY. [_Sotto voce._] Good gracious, what next! What is there in this girl to be sung at! LESLIE. Dun has been very good to Pietro, who is poor, with an old blind mother. Oh, he is good to everybody--good to everybody! MRS. STONEHAY. But, my dear Mrs. Renshaw, a wife ought not to be astonished at her husband’s good-nature in the early days of their marriage. What else did you expect for the first month? IRENE. Hush, mamma dear; all Leslie means is that she is proud of her husband’s goodness. What wife would not be? LESLIE. Yes, that is it--I am both proud and humble. Why, look! Directly we came here he sought out all the poor; in a few days they have learnt to bless his name, and when I pray for him I think I hear their chant echoing me. I tell you, sometimes I hide myself away to shed tears of gratitude, and it’s then that I think a woman’s heart might be broken less easily by cruelty than by too much kindness! MRS. STONEHAY. [_To herself._] This girl’s parade of her model husband is insufferable; it is time I ended it. [_WILFRID returns._] MRS. STONEHAY. By the way, Mrs. Renshaw, I hope that out of your vast contentment you can spare some congratulations for my daughter. IRENE.