Scene 2: Wood-pass in the Neighborhood of William Lowville’s Residence at Beachwood.
Enter Henry Lowville, R. 2 E., with gun resting on arm.
Hen. [Looking off L. E.] The guests are beginning to arrive, and I suppose I must, as a member of the family, be on hand and help do the honors of entertaining the motley crowd. [Sighs.] Ah! how I hate the hollow mockery of fashionable society—how I hate to mingle in the giddy deception hidden under the guise of polite gentility—bah!
Enter Reginald, L. 2 E.
Reg. Why, how now, Henry! One of your melancholy fits again? Ha! ha! ha! [Shakes hands.]
Hen. Yes, confoundedly so! I’ve got the blues with a vengeance.
Reg. Come, come, old fellow, shake off this feeling. Why, you look as if you had buried your best friend. Come, have a weed! [Offers segar case.] Nothing like a smoke, you know, to calm a perturbed mind.
Hen. [Lights segar.] Yes, there is a certain soothing influence about it; that’s a fact.
Reg. Ah! now you look more like yourself. But how is this—why are you not at your post, doing the honors to the guests?