LADY PEMBURY (smiling). But then women are unreasonable, aren't they? And I think it is only in fairy-stories that stepmothers are always so unkind.
STRANGER (surprised). Stepmother!
LADY PEMBURY. Well, that's practically what I am, isn't it? (Whimsically) I've never been a stepmother before. (Persuasively) Couldn't you let me be proud of my stepson?
STRANGER. Well, you are a one! . . . Do you mean to say that you and your husband aren't going to have a row about this?
LADY PEMBURY. It's rather late to begin a row, isn't it, thirty years after it's happened? . . . Besides, perhaps you aren't going to tell him anything about it.
STRANGER. But what else have I come for except to tell him?
LADY PEMBURY. To tell me. . . . I asked you to give him a chance of helping you out of your troubles, but I'd rather you gave me the chance. . . . You see, John would be very unhappy if he knew that I knew this; and he would have to tell me, because when a man has been happily married to anybody for twenty-eight years, he can't really keep a secret from the other one. He pretends to himself that he can, but he knows all the time what a miserable pretence it is. And so John would tell me, and say he was sorry, and I would say: "It's all right, darling, I knew," but it would make him ashamed, and he would be afraid that perhaps I wasn't thinking him such a wonderful man as I did before. And it's very bad for a public man like John when he begins to lose faith in what his wife is thinking about him. . . . So let me be your friend, will you? (There is a silence between them for a little. He looks at her wonderingly. Suddenly she stands up, her finger to her lips) H'sh! It's John. (She moves away from him)
SIR JOHN PEMBURY comes in quickly; big, good-looking, decisive, friendly; a man who wears very naturally, and without any self-consciousness, an air of being somebody.
PEMBURY (walking hastily past his wife to her writing-desk). Hallo, darling! Did I leave a cheque-book in here? I was writing a cheque for you this morning. Ah, here we are. (As he comes back, he sees THE STRANGER) I beg your pardon, Kate. I didn't see—— (He is making for the door with the cheque-book in his hand, and then stops and says with a pleasant smile to THE STRANGER) But, perhaps you are waiting to see me? Perkins said something——
STRANGER (coming forward). Yes, I came to see you, Sir John.