Sydney. Why not?
Miss Fairfield. You’re too young.
SYDNEY. I’m old enough to be engaged.
Miss Fairfield. You’re not engaged.
Sydney. [Insolently] Kissed then. You saw that half an hour ago, didn’t you? I might just as well say I can’t discuss it with you because you’re too old.
Miss Fairfield. How dare you speak to me like that?
Sydney. [Beside herself] Oh, are all old people such stone walls? Here’s a shadow, here’s a trouble, here’s a ghost in the house—and when I ask you what shall I do, you talk about your blessed dignity!
Miss Fairfield. [Rising] This is the second time in one morning that you have driven me out of the room.
Sydney. [Wringing her hands] Well, I’m sorry! But I’m so worried. Don’t you see I’ve got to keep it off Mother? and Kit! Oh, I’ve got to tell Kit! [Following her irresolutely] Auntie, if you’d only be decent. [But Miss Fairfield has gone out. Sydney turns back into the room] If I only knew what to do!
She stands hesitating. Then she goes to the telephone: makes a movement as if to take it down but checks herself, shaking her head. She comes back to the sofa at last and flings herself down on it, fidgeting with the cushions and frowning. She is roused by the click of a latch as the French window in the inner room is softly opened, and Hilary Fairfield steps over the threshold. He is a big, fresh-coloured man with grey hair and bowed shoulders. In speech and movements he is quick and jerky, inclined to be boisterous, but pathetically easy to check. This he knows himself, and he has, indeed, an air of being always in rebellion against his own habit of obedience. He comes in, treading softly, his bright eyes dancing with excitement, like a child getting ready to spring a surprise on somebody. Something in the fashion of the empty room (for he does not see Sydney crouching in the cushions) disconcerts him. He hesitates. The happy little smile fades. His eye wanders from one object to another and he moves about, recognising a picture here, fingering there an unfamiliar hanging, as it were losing and finding himself a dozen times in his progress round the room. He comes to a stand at last before the fire-place, warming his hands. Then he takes out a pipe and with the other hand feels absently along the mantel-piece for the matches. Sydney, who has been watching him with a sort of breathless sympathy, says softly:—