You come out to a few theaters and parties with me— EVELYN I can’t dance well enough. CAROL I’ll soon teach you. EVELYN I’d drive you mad. CAROL Have you a gramophone here? EVELYN Yes. CAROL We’ll start after dinner. EVELYN All right. CAROL And whenever I’m tired and sick of everything, I’ll come here and dine quietly like this. EVELYN Will you, honestly? CAROL Of course, if you stick to your side of the compact. EVELYN I don’t believe you’ll have the patience to carry it through. CAROL You must despise me. EVELYN Despise you? Good Heavens! Why? CAROL You’re so untrusting. EVELYN No, I’m not; but it does look as though I were going to get more out of this than you. CAROL Not at all. It’s a perfectly fair exchange. You’ve no idea how utterly weary I get every now and then. EVELYN Poor Carol. CAROL This is peace, absolute peace, and I’m tremendously grateful to you for it. [_They look at each other in silence for a moment. EVELYN’S expression is faintly nonplused._] EVELYN The compact’s on. CAROL Good! Shake hands. EVELYN Right you are. [_They shake hands across the table. CAROL allows hers to remain in his a shade more than is strictly necessary._] CAROL Do you want to come to the first night of “Round Pegs” on Thursday? EVELYN What on earth’s that? CAROL A new play by Burton Trask. EVELYN Who’s he? CAROL [_Laughing_] Oh, Evie! EVELYN Well, how should I know? CAROL He’s only the most talked of dramatist we’ve got. EVELYN Sorry. CAROL He wrote “The Sinful Spinster.” EVELYN Oh, the play all the fuss was about last year. CAROL Yes. EVELYN It sounded pretty hot stuff. CAROL It wasn’t, really, but the woman in it fell in love with a man younger than herself and the Church of England didn’t like it. EVELYN Oh, I see! CAROL You need educating badly. EVELYN I’m afraid I do. [_BLACKWELL enters and takes away their soup plates._] CAROL Wasn’t it funny us talking this afternoon and you asking me to dine all in a minute? EVELYN Awfully funny, but very lucky for me. CAROL You make me feel shy when you say things like that. It was just as lucky for me. EVELYN [_With intensity_] Was it, honestly? CAROL [_Looking down_] Of course. [_BLACKWELL enters with partridges and attendant vegetables. He serves them during the ensuing dialogue._] EVELYN Edward’s looking awfully tired these days. CAROL [_Absently_] Is he? I haven’t noticed it. EVELYN Why, you said so yourself this afternoon. CAROL So I did. I remember he looked very wan when I came in. By the way, what were you two discussing so intently. I felt as though I were interrupting a Masonic meeting. EVELYN Nothing particular. CAROL Me, by any chance? EVELYN Good Heavens, no! CAROL There’s no need to be so vehement about it; it wouldn’t have mattered if you had been. EVELYN Have some more champagne. CAROL Thanks—just a little.