GEORGE. ‘Hullo! Hullo! Madame George Dupont?’ [_Imitating a woman’s timid voice_] ‘Yes, yes. I am here.’ I could feel you blushing at the end of the wire. HENRIETTE [_laughing_] I didn’t say ‘I am here’ in that voice. I simply answered ‘Yes.’ GEORGE. ‘Hullo, Madame George Dupont. Is George there?’ [_Laughing_] You were taken in! You can’t say you weren’t. [_In the woman’s voice_] ‘George is out. Who is it speaking to me?’ I could hardly keep it up. ‘Me, Gustave.’ You thought it was, too. HENRIETTE. What is there astonishing in your friend Gustave telephoning? GEORGE. And when I added [_imitating Gustave’s voice_] ‘How are you this morning, dearest?’ you gave a ’What?’ all flustered, like that: ‘What?’ HENRIETTE. Yes, but then I guessed it was you. GEORGE. I went into fits. What a lark! [_He sits down in front of her on the arm of the chair close to the fireplace and watches her happily_]. HENRIETTE [_sitting down and returning his glance_] What a funny little fellow you are! GEORGE. Me? HENRIETTE [_gaily_] Do you think I don’t understand you, after knowing you for fifteen years and being married to you a twelvemonth? GEORGE [_curious_] Ah! well, go on. Say what you think of me. HENRIETTE. To begin with, you’re anxious. Then you’re jealous. And suspicious. You spend all your time in making a tangle of things and then inventing ingenious ways of getting out of it. GEORGE [_happy to hear himself talked about_] So that’s what you think of me? Go on, let us have some more. HENRIETTE. Isn’t it true? GEORGE [_admitting it with a laugh_] Well? HENRIETTE. Wasn’t it a trap that you set for me this morning? GEORGE [_in the same tone_] No. HENRIETTE. Yes; you wanted to be sure that I had not gone out. You asked me not to go to the Louvre to-day. GEORGE [_innocently_] So I did. HENRIETTE. See how suspicious you are, even of me. GEORGE. No; not of you. HENRIETTE. Yes, you are. But you have always been, so I don’t mind. And then I know at the bottom you feel things so keenly that it makes you rather afraid. GEORGE [_seriously_] I was laughed at so much when I was a boy. HENRIETTE [_gaily_] Besides, perhaps you have reasons for not having too much confidence in men’s friendships with their friends’ wives. Gay deceiver! GEORGE [_laughing_] I should like to know what you mean by that. HENRIETTE. Suppose I had thought it was Gustave and answered: ‘Very well, thanks. How are you, darling?’ GEORGE [_laughing_] Well, it is a trick that I shouldn’t like to try on everyone. [_Changing the conversation_] By the way, as I came in Justin spoke to me. HENRIETTE. Well? GEORGE. He says he wants a rise. HENRIETTE. He has chosen a likely moment. GEORGE. Hasn’t he? I asked him if the sale of my cigars was not enough for him. HENRIETTE. How did he take that? GEORGE. He lost his temper and gave warning. This time I took him at his word. He’s simply furious. HENRIETTE. Good.