[After a pause, speaking in a hard voice.] Excuse me for saying so, Mrs. Fraser—but I think you regard your share in the affair of last night more as a schoolgirl would regard it, than as a woman; rather sentimentally, in fact.

Theophila.

Thank God, I’m able to do that! Sentimentally? Well, ninety-nine women out of a hundred are kept fresh and sweet by nothing better than mere sentiment. [Sitting upon the settee, a little faintly.] Where’s ’Tina?

[Olive turns and comes to her; she is wiping the tears from her eyes.

Olive.

You know, if you wished to have your revenge on me, you have it.

Theophila.

Revenge? I?

Olive.

[Turning from Theophila, her hand playing with the arm of the chair.] The services I thought you would allow me to render you are the only means by which I could hope to get my husband to overlook my behaviour of last night. He won’t speak to me to-day.