McCOMAS (rising, angry and scandalized). Really I must say— (Bohun, who has listened to Dolly with the highest approval, is down on him instantly.)
BOHUN. No: don't interrupt, McComas. The young lady's method is right. (To Dolly, with tremendous emphasis.) Press your questions, Miss Clandon: press your questions.
DOLLY (rising). Oh, dear, you are a regular overwhelmer! Do you always go on like this?
BOHUN (rising). Yes. Don't you try to put me out of countenance, young lady: you're too young to do it. (He takes McComas's chair from beside Mrs. Clandon's and sets it beside his own.) Sit down. (Dolly, fascinated, obeys; and Bohun sits down again. McComas, robbed of his seat, takes a chair on the other side between the table and the ottoman.) Now, Mr. Crampton, the facts are before you—both of them. You think you'd like to have your two youngest children to live with you. Well, you wouldn't— (Crampton tries to protest; but Bohun will not have it on any terms.) No, you wouldn't: you think you would; but I know better than you. You'd want this young lady here to give up dressing like a stage columbine in the evening and like a fashionable columbine in the morning. Well, she won't—never. She thinks she will; but—
DOLLY (interrupting him). No I don't. (Resolutely.) I'll n e v e r give up dressing prettily. Never. As Gloria said to that man in Madeira, never, never, never while grass grows or water runs.
VALENTINE (rising in the wildest agitation). What! What! (Beginning to speak very fast.) When did she say that? Who did she say that to?
BOHUN (throwing himself back with massive, pitying remonstrance). Mr. Valentine—
VALENTINE (pepperily). Don't you interrupt me, sir: this is something really serious. I i n s i s t on knowing who Miss Clandon said that to.
DOLLY. Perhaps Phil remembers. Which was it, Phil? number three or number five?
VALENTINE. Number five!!!