SIMON. I should just say there were.
MARY ROSE. Simon, how can you? There was nothing so bad as that.
SIMON (shaking his head). I can smile at it now, but at the time I was a miserable man. I wonder I didn’t take to drink.
MARY ROSE. Poor old Simon. But how stupid you were, dear, not to understand.
SIMON. How could an ignorant young husband understand that it was a good sign when his wife threw the butter-dish at him?
MARY ROSE. You should have guessed.
SIMON. No doubt I was a ninny. But I had always understood that when a young wife—that then she took the husband aside and went red, or white, and hid her head on his bosom, and whispered the rest. I admit I was hoping for that; but all I got was the butter-dish.
MARY ROSE. I suppose different women have different ways.
SIMON. I hope so. (Severely.) And that was a dastard trick you played me afterwards.
MARY ROSE. Which? Oh, that! I just wanted you to be out of the way till all was over.