Children -- Drama; Comedy plays; England -- Drama; Fathers -- Drama; Runaway husbands -- Drama; Wives -- Drama
DOLLY (following him insistently). Do you like it?
CRAMPTON. My child: how can you expect me to like it or to approve of
it?
DOLLY (determined not to let him off). How can you think it pretty and
not like it?
McCOMAS (rising, angry and scandalized). Really I must say-- (Bohun,
who has listened to Dolly with the highest approval, is down on him
instantly.)
BOHUN. No: don't interrupt, McComas. The young lady's method is right.
(To Dolly, with tremendous emphasis.) Press your questions, Miss
Clandon: press your questions.
DOLLY (rising). Oh, dear, you are a regular overwhelmer! Do you always
go on like this?
BOHUN (rising). Yes. Don't you try to put me out of countenance, young
lady: you're too young to do it. (He takes McComas's chair from
beside Mrs. Clandon's and sets it beside his own.) Sit down. (Dolly,
fascinated, obeys; and Bohun sits down again. McComas, robbed of
his seat, takes a chair on the other side between the table and the
ottoman.) Now, Mr. Crampton, the facts are before you--both of them. You
think you'd like to have your two youngest children to live with you.
Well, you wouldn't-- (Crampton tries to protest; but Bohun will not
have it on any terms.) No, you wouldn't: you think you would; but I know
better than you. You'd want this young lady here to give up dressing
like a stage columbine in the evening and like a fashionable columbine
in the morning. Well, she won't--never. She thinks she will; but--
DOLLY (interrupting him). No I don't. (Resolutely.) I'll n e v e r give
up dressing prettily. Never. As Gloria said to that man in Madeira,
never, never, never while grass grows or water runs.
VALENTINE (rising in the wildest agitation). What! What! (Beginning to
speak very fast.) When did she say that? Who did she say that to?
BOHUN (throwing himself back with massive, pitying remonstrance). Mr.
Valentine--
VALENTINE (pepperily). Don't you interrupt me, sir: this is something
really serious. I i n s i s t on knowing who Miss Clandon said that to.
DOLLY. Perhaps Phil remembers. Which was it, Phil? number three or
number five?
VALENTINE. Number five!!!
PHILIP. Courage, Valentine. It wasn't number five: it was only a tame
naval lieutenant that was always on hand--the most patient and harmless
of mortals.
GLORIA (coldly). What are we discussing now, pray?
VALENTINE (very red). Excuse me: I am sorry I interrupted. I shall
intrude no further, Mrs. Clandon. (He bows to Mrs. Clandon and marches
away into the garden, boiling with suppressed rage.)
DOLLY. Hmhm!
PHILIP. Ahah!
GLORIA. Please go on, Mr. Bohun.
DOLLY (striking in as Bohun, frowning formidably, collects himself for a
fresh grapple with the case). You're going to bully us, Mr. Bohun.
BOHUN. I--
DOLLY (interrupting him). Oh, yes, you are: you think you're not; but
you are. I know by your eyebrows.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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