STEVE. ‘Only a cupboard.’
ALICE. ‘What do you keep in it?’
STEVE. ‘Merely crockery—that sort of thing.’
ALICE. ‘I should like to see your crockery, Steve. Not one little bit of china? May I peep in?’
COLONEL, who is placidly smoking, with his back to the scene of the drama, ‘Don’t mind her, Steve; she never could see a door without itching to open it.’
Alice opens the door, and sees Amy standing there with her finger to her lips, just as they stood in all the five plays. Ginevra could not have posed her better.
‘Well, have you found anything, memsahib?’
It has been the great shock of Alice’s life, and she sways. But she shuts the door before answering him.
ALICE, with a terrible look at Steve, ‘Just a dark little cupboard.’
Steve, not aware that it is her daughter who is in there, wonders why the lighter aspect of the incident has ceased so suddenly to strike her. She returns to the fire, but not to her chair. She puts her arms round the neck of her husband; a great grief for him is welling up in her breast.