The unhappy youth gropes mentally and physically.
STEVE. ‘Good heavens, was there nothing in it?’
COLONEL. ‘My boy, I’ll never let you hear the end of this.’
STEVE. ‘But if there’s nothing in it, how could your daughter have thought—’
COLONEL. ‘She saw you kiss Alice here this afternoon, you scoundrel, and, as she thought, make an assignation with you. There, it all came out of that. She is a sentimental lady, is our Amy, and she has been too often to the theatre.’
STEVE. ‘Let me think.’
COLONEL. ‘Here is a chair for the very purpose. Now, think hard.’
STEVE. ‘But—but—then why did you pretend before her, Alice?’
ALICE. ‘Because she thinks that she has saved me, and it makes her so happy. Amy has a passionate desire to be of some use in this world she knows so well, and she already sees her sphere, Steve, it is to look after me. I am not to be her chaperone, it is she who is to be mine. I have submitted, you see.’
COLONEL, fidgeting, ‘She seems to have quite given me up for you.’