(_At the last words they turn; their eyes meet. KITTY falters. JEM falters. After a moment they fall into one another's arms._) [Illustration: KITTY: "SPLENDID! I NEVER SAW ANYTHING SO WELL DONE!" SIR W.: "IT'S NO LAUGHING MATTER!"] _Enter PORTER_: Her ladyship has bidden me to put her trunks together, ma'am. KITTY: Wait a minute, Porter. Perhaps I can persuade her ladyship to stay. (_Voices from without._) LADY FLO: I wish to go this instant, and alone. SIR W.: By all means, and to-morrow my lawyer shall wait on you. LADY FLO: And mine on you. (_After a moment, they enter._) LADY FLO: And it has come to this, William! SIR W.: By mutual consent. This is the happiest day of my life. I breathe again. I know now I have never breathed until this moment since the day I married you! LADY FLO: This is beyond everything! (_Violently excited._) JEM (_whispers aside to KITTY, unobserved; play on both sides; then, after evidently agreeing on a plan, pretend to treat the matter as a joke; advancing_): Bravo! Bravissimo! _Capital!_ (_Roars with forced laughter._) KITTY: Splendid! I never saw anything so well done! (_Joins her husband in laughter._) SIR W.: It's no laughing matter! JEM: Ha! ha! I daresay not. KITTY: Irving and Ellen Terry are not in it! (_Continues laughing._) LADY FLO: What _can_ you mean? JEM: Oh, don't pretend that you and my uncle have not been getting up this little comedy of a quarrel, merely to show Kitty and me what fools we look when _we_ are fighting! Why! It was better than any play I ever saw! SIR W.: It's all been in sober earnest, I assure you. (_LADY FLO recovers slightly. Looks first at JEM, then at KITTY, and lastly at SIR WILLIAM._) LADY FLO (_slowly_): You call--all--this--a little comedy? (_Recovers more, but very gradually._) KITTY: Why, yes! Don't attempt to say it wasn't--(_slyly_)--especially after all you told me this morning about how cleverly you manage my uncle. Just let me see you glance at him in the way you said you could. (_Whispering._) (_LADY FLO further recovers herself. Her expression softens. After a minute or two she smiles meaningly to herself._) JEM: Now, Uncle Will, do finish off by pretending to make up the quarrel! There's my aunt waiting with her smile already! SIR W. (_stupidly_): _Pretend_ to make up the quarrel? LADY FLO (_suddenly radiant_): Why, yes! You silly old goose! Don't you see the fun? Pretend to give me a kiss at once. (_They kiss._) JEM and KITTY (_aside_): That's a comfort. (_They walk up stage._) LADY FLO (_aside to SIR WILLIAM_): I can see you are dying to make amends for all you have just said! SIR W.: I don't deny that I may be! LADY FLO: Then tell me what it was you were concocting with Jem! There's an old dear! SIR W.: Since we are all good friends again I don't mind telling you Jem was confiding his little troubles to me. LADY FLO: But you had already found them out! SIR W.: And also that there was a possibility of a separation!