MORELL. Did I go too fast, Pross?
PROSERPINE. Much too fast. You know I can't do more than a hundred words a minute. (She relieves her feelings by throwing her note-book angrily beside her machine, ready for use next morning.)
MORELL (soothingly). Oh, well, well, never mind, never mind, never mind. Have you all had supper?
LEXY. Mr. Burgess has been kind enough to give us a really splendid supper at the Belgrave.
BURGESS (with effusive magnanimity). Don't mention it, Mr. Mill. (Modestly.) You're 'arty welcome to my little treat.
PROSERPINE. We had champagne! I never tasted it before. I feel quite giddy.
MORELL (surprised). A champagne supper! That was very handsome. Was it my eloquence that produced all this extravagance?
MILL (rhetorically). Your eloquence, and Mr. Burgess's goodness of heart. (With a fresh burst of exhilaration.) And what a very fine fellow the chairman is, Morell! He came to supper with us.
MORELL (with long drawn significance, looking at Burgess). O-o-o-h, the chairman. NOW I understand.
(Burgess, covering a lively satisfaction in his diplomatic cunning with a deprecatory cough, retires to the hearth. Lexy folds his arms and leans against the cellaret in a high-spirited attitude. Candida comes in with glasses, lemons, and a jug of hot water on a tray.)