MAGGIE. _I_ chose it, didn’t I? VENABLES. You know you did. MAGGIE [appealingly]. You admire John? VENABLES. Very much. But he puzzles me a little. You Scots, Mrs. Shand, are such a mixture of the practical and the emotional that you escape out of an Englishman’s hand like a trout. MAGGIE [open-eyed]. Do we? VENABLES. Well, not you, but your husband. I have known few men make a worse beginning in the House. He had the most atrocious bow-wow public-park manner--- COMTESSE. I remember that manner! MAGGIE. No, he hadn’t. VENABLES [soothingly]. At first. But by his second session he had shed all that, and he is now a pleasure to listen to. By the way, Comtesse, have you found any dark intention in that? COMTESSE. You wanted to know whether he talks over these matter with his wife; and she has told you that he does not. MAGGIE [indignantly]. I haven’t said a word about it, have I? VENABLES. Not a word. Then, again, I admire him for his impromptu speeches. MAGGIE. What is impromptu? VENABLES. Unprepared. They have contained some grave blunders not so much of judgment as of taste--- MAGGIE [hotly]. _I_ don’t think so. VENABLES. Pardon me. But he has righted himself subsequently in the neatest way. I have always found that the man whose second thoughts are good is worth watching. Well, Comtesse, I see you have something to say. COMTESSE. You are wondering whether she can tell you who gives him his second thoughts. MAGGIE. Gives them to John? I would like to see anybody try to give thoughts to John. VENABLES. Quite so. COMTESSE. Is there anything more that has roused your admiration Charles? VENABLES [purring]. Let me see. Yes, we are all much edified by his humour. COMTESSE [surprised indeed]. His humour? That man! MAGGIE [with hauteur]. Why not? VENABLES. I assure you, Comtesse, some of the neat things in his speeches convulse the house. A word has even been coined for them--Shandisms. COMTESSE [slowly recovering from a blow]. Humour! VENABLES. In conversation, I admit, he strikes one as being--ah--somewhat lacking in humour. COMTESSE [pouncing]. You are wondering who supplies his speeches with the humour. MAGGIE. Supplies John? VENABLES. Now that you mention it, some of his Shandisms do have a curiously feminine quality. COMTESSE. You have thought it might be a woman. VENABLES. Really, Comtesse-- COMTESSE. I see it all. Charles, you thought it might be the wife! VENABLES [flinging up his hands]. I own up. MAGGIE [bewildered]. Me? VENABLES. Forgive me, I see I was wrong. MAGGIE [alarmed]. Have I been doing John any harm? VENABLES. On the contrary, I am relieved to know that there are no hairpins in his speeches. If he is at home, Mrs. Shand, may I see him? I am going to be rather charming to him. MAGGIE [drawn in two directions]. Yes, he is--oh yes--but-- VENABLES. That is to say, Comtesse, if he proves himself the man I believe him to be. [This arrests MAGGIE almost as she has reached the dining-room door.]