Even a less captious respectability than Lady Creech's might have looked askance at the long friendship
[kisses her hand]
which has existed between us. Yet she has always countenanced us, though she must have guessed—a great many things. And she will help us to urge an immediate marriage. You know as well as I do that unless it is immediate, there'll be the devil to pay. Don't miss that essential: something must be done at once. We're at the breaking-point—if you like the words—a most damnable insolvency.
[Enter ALMERIC from the grove. He is a fair, fresh-colored Englishman of twenty-five, handsome in a rather vacuous way. He wears white duck riding-breeches, light-tan leather riding-gaiters and shoes, a riding-coat of white duck, a waistcoat light tan in shade, and a high riding-stock, the collar of which is white, the "puffed" tie pink; a Panama hat [pg 029] with a fold of light tan and white silk round the crown. Carries a riding-crop.]
ALMERIC
[as he enters]
Hello, Governor!
[His voice is habitually loud and his accent somewhat foppish, having a little of the "Guardsman" affectation of languor and indifference.]
Howdy, Countess!
[He drops into a chair at the breakfast-table with a slight effect of sprawling.]