DINAH. Well, you must please yourself, Mr. Pim. I'm just giving you a friendly word of advice. Naturally, I was awfully glad to get such a magnificent aunt, because, of course, marriage is rather a toss up, isn't it, and George might have gone off with anybody. It's different on the stage, where guardians always marry their wards, but George couldn't marry me because I'm his niece. Mind you, I don't say that I should have had him, because between ourselves he's a little bit old-fashioned.
PIM. So he married—er—Mrs. Marden instead.
DINAH. Mrs. Telworthy—don't say you've forgotten already, just when you were getting so good at names. Mrs. Telworthy. You see, Olivia married the Telworthy man and went to Australia with him, and he drank himself to death in the bush, or wherever you drink yourself to death out there, and Olivia came home to England, and met my uncle, and he fell in love with her and proposed to her, and he came into my room that night—I was about fourteen—and turned on the light and said, "Dinah, how would you like to have a beautiful aunt of your very own?" And I said: "Congratulations, George." That was the first time I called him George. Of course, I'd seen it coming for weeks. Telworthy, isn't it a funny name?
PIM. Very singular. From Australia, you say?
DINAH. Yes, I always say that he's probably still alive, and will turn up here one morning and annoy George, because that's what first husbands always do in books, but I'm afraid there's not much chance.
PIM (shocked). Miss Marden!
DINAH. Well, of course, I don't really want it to happen, but it would be rather exciting, wouldn't it? However, things like that never seem to occur down here, somehow. There was a hay-rick burnt last year about a mile away, but that isn't quite the same thing, is it?
PIM. No, I should say that that was certainly different.
DINAH. Of course, something very, very wonderful did happen last night, but I'm not sure if I know you well enough—— (She looks at him hesitatingly.)
PIM (uncomfortably). Really, Miss Marden, I am only a—a passer-by, here to-day and gone to-morrow. You really mustn't——