The Benefit of the Doubt; a Comedy in Three Acts

by Arthur Wing Pinero

Mrs. Emptage.

[Rising.] Ah!

Claude.

Just come in.

[Mrs. Cloys walks away; Claude joins Justina.]

Mrs. Emptage.

[Repressing her excitement.] Sssh, sssh, sssh! Let nobody make a fuss; Alec hates a fuss!

Sir Fletcher Portwood.

No fuss, but some one ought to play “See the Conquering Hero——!” Theo is so fond of a little fun—genuine fun!

[He seats himself at the piano and fingers out the air laboriously. Theophila and her husband enter. She is an elegantly-dressed, still girlish, woman of seven-and-twenty; he a good-looking, undemonstrative man of about five-and-thirty. Both are pale, weary-looking, and subdued. Fraser is gloved and frock-coated; Theophila is in her bonnet and cape.