KIRKE. [Blotting his writing.] There. How goes the time?
GERTRUDE. Half past eight.
KIRKE. I'll leave this prescription at Mantovani's myself. I can get it made up to-night.
AGNES. [Taking the prescription out of his hand playfully.] Let me look.
KIRKE. [Protesting.] Now, now!
AGNES. [Reading the prescription.] Ha, ha! After all, what humbugs doctors are!
KIRKE. You've never heard me deny it.
AGNES. [Returning the prescription to him.] But I'll swallow it—for the dignity of my old profession. [She reaches out her hand to take a cigarette.]
KIRKE. Don't smoke too many of those things.
AGNES. They never harm me. It's a survival of the time in my life when the cupboard was always empty. [Striking a match.] Only it had to be stronger tobacco in those days, I can tell you. [She lights her cigarette. GERTRUDE is assisting KIRKE with his overcoat. LUCAS enters, in evening dress, looking younger, almost boyish.]