PHILIP (seconding her warmly). Where the beard?—the cloak?—the poetic exterior?
DOLLY. Oh, Mr. McComas, you've gone and spoiled yourself. Why didn't you wait till we'd seen you?
McCOMAS (taken aback, but rallying his humor to meet the emergency). Because eighteen years is too long for a solicitor to go without having his hair cut.
GLORIA (at the other side of McComas). How do you do, Mr. McComas? (He turns; and she takes his hand and presses it, with a frank straight look into his eyes.) We are glad to meet you at last.
McCOMAS. Miss Gloria, I presume? (Gloria smiles assent, and releases his hand after a final pressure. She then retires behind the garden seat, leaning over the back beside Mrs. Clandon.) And this young gentleman?
PHILIP. I was christened in a comparatively prosaic mood. My name is—
DOLLY (completing his sentence for him declamatorily). "Norval. On the Grampian hills"—
PHILIP (declaiming gravely). "My father feeds his flock, a frugal swain"—
MRS. CLANDON (remonstrating). Dear, dear children: don't be silly. Everything is so new to them here, Finch, that they are in the wildest spirits. They think every Englishman they meet is a joke.
DOLLY. Well, so he is: it's not our fault.