STEVE. ‘How can you find that out by crawling about my carpet?’
COLONEL. ‘I am looking for hair-pins—triumphantly holding up a lady’s glove—‘and I have found one!’
They have been too engrossed to hear the bell ring, but now voices are audible.
STEVE. ‘There is some one coming up.’
COLONEL. ‘Perhaps it is she, Steve! No, that is Alice’s voice. Catch, you scoundrel,’ and he tosses him the glove. Alice is shown in, and is warmly acclaimed. She would not feel so much at ease if she knew who, hand on heart, has recognised her through the pantry key-hole.
STEVE, as he makes Alice comfortable by the fire, ‘How did you leave them at home?’
ALICE, relapsing into gloom, ‘All hating me.’
STEVE. ‘This man says that home is the most delightful club in the world.’
ALICE. ‘I am not a member; I have been blackballed by my own baby. Robert, I dined in state with Cosmo, and he was so sulky that he ate his fish without salt rather than ask me to pass it.’
COLONEL. ‘Where was Amy?’