LADY MARY (with an effort). Father, Brocklehurst has been so loyal to me for these two years that I should despise myself were I to keep my—my extraordinary lapse from him. Had Brocklehurst been a little less good, then you need not have told him my strange little secret.
LORD LOAM (weakly). Polly—I mean Mary—it was all Crichton’s fault, he—
LADY MARY (with decision). No, father, no; not a word against him though. I haven’t the pluck to go on with it; I can’t even understand how it ever was. Father, do you not still hear the surf? Do you see the curve of the beach?
LORD LOAM. I have begun to forget—(in a low voice). But they were happy days; there was something magical about them.
LADY MARY. It was glamour. Father, I have lived Arabian nights. I have sat out a dance with the evening star. But it was all in a past existence, in the days of Babylon, and I am myself again. But he has been chivalrous always. If the slothful, indolent creature I used to be has improved in any way, I owe it all to him. I am slipping back in many ways, but I am determined not to slip back altogether—in memory of him and his island. That is why I insisted on your telling Brocklehurst. He can break our engagement if he chooses. (Proudly.) Mary Lasenby is going to play the game.
LORD LOAM. But my dear—
(LORD BROCKLEHURST is announced.)
LADY MARY (meaningly). Father, dear, oughtn’t you to be dressing?
LORD LOAM (very unhappy). The fact is—before I go—I want to say—
LORD BROCKLEHURST. Loam, if you don’t mind, I wish very specially to have a word with Mary before dinner.