THE LADY. Need I add that she is my bitterest enemy?
AUGUSTUS. May I—[he proffers his hand. They shake, fervently. From this moment onward Augustus becomes more and more confidential, gallant, and charming.]
THE LADY. Quite so. Well, she is an intimate friend of your brother at the War Office, Hungerford Highcastle, Blueloo as you call him, I don't know why.
AUGUSTUS [explaining]. He was originally called The Singing Oyster, because he sang drawing-room ballads with such an extraordinary absence of expression. He was then called the Blue Point for a season or two. Finally he became Blueloo.
THE LADY. Oh, indeed: I didn't know. Well, Blueloo is simply infatuated with my sister-in-law; and he has rashly let out to her that this list is in your possession. He forgot himself because he was in a towering rage at its being entrusted to you: his language was terrible. He ordered all the guns to be shifted at once.
AUGUSTUS. What on earth did he do that for?
THE LADY. I can't imagine. But this I know. She made a bet with him that she would come down here and obtain possession of that list and get clean away into the street with it. He took the bet on condition that she brought it straight back to him at the War Office.
AUGUSTUS. Good heavens! And you mean to tell me that Blueloo was such a dolt as to believe that she could succeed? Does he take me for a fool?
THE LADY. Oh, impossible! He is jealous of your intellect. The bet is an insult to you: don't you feel that? After what you have done for our country—
AUGUSTUS. Oh, never mind that. It is the idiocy of the thing I look at. He'll lose his bet; and serve him right!