ST. OLPHERTS. [Smilingly.] No, no, I don't complain. But the brother— the wife! Just when they imagined they had bagged the truant—there's the sting!
GERTRUDE. Oh, then Mr. Cleeve now refuses to carry out his part of the shameful arrangement?
ST. OLPHERTS. Absolutely. [Rising, taking a chair, and placing it by the settee.] Come into this, dear Mrs. Thorn—!
AMOS. Thorpe.
ST. OLPHERTS. Come into this! [Sitting again.] You understand the sort of man we have to deal with in Mr. Cleeve.
GERTRUDE. [Sitting.] A man who prizes a woman when he has lost her.
ST. OLPHERTS. Precisely.
GERTRUDE. Men don't relish, I suppose, being cast off by women.
ST. OLPHERTS. It's an inversion of the picturesque; the male abandoned is not a pathetic figure. At any rate, our poor Lucas is now raving fidelity to Mrs. Ebbsmith.
GERTRUDE. [Indignantly.] Ah—!