The Benefit of the Doubt; a Comedy in Three Acts

by Arthur Wing Pinero

Mrs. Cloys.

[After looking round the room.] The wife.

Sir Fletcher Portwood.

The wife!

Mrs. Cloys.

Who could have anticipated anything so extraordinary.

Sir Fletcher Portwood.

[Walking about uneasily.] Harriet, your theories and suspicions have involved us in an entanglement of—ah—an unexpected kind.

Claude.

[Moodily.] A reg’lar mess, I call it.