TWEENY (blankly). You and me? the Gov.! (Her head droops woefully. From without is heard the whistling of a happier spirit, and TWEENY draws herself up fiercely.) That’s her; that’s the thing what has stole his heart from me. (A stalwart youth appears at the window, so handsome and tingling with vitality that, glad to depose CRICHTON, we cry thankfully, ‘The Hero at last.’ But it is not the hero; it is the heroine. This splendid boy, clad in skins, is what nature has done for LADY MARY. She carries bow and arrows and a blow-pipe, and over her shoulder is a fat buck, which she drops with a cry of triumph. Forgetting to enter demurely, she leaps through the window.) (Sourly.) Drat you, Polly, why don’t you wipe your feet?
LADY MARY (good-naturedly). Come, Tweeny, be nice to me. It’s a splendid buck. (But TWEENY shakes her off, and retires to the kitchen fire.)
ERNEST. Where did you get it?
LADY MARY (gaily). I sighted a herd near Penguin’s Creek, but had to creep round Silver Lake to get to windward of them. However, they spotted me and then the fun began. There was nothing for it but to try and run them down, so I singled out a fat buck and away we went down the shore of the lake, up the valley of rolling stones; he doubled into Brawling River and took to the water, but I swam after him; the river is only half a mile broad there, but it runs strong. He went spinning down the rapids, down I went in pursuit; he clambered ashore, I clambered ashore; away we tore helter-skelter up the hill and down again. I lost him in the marshes, got on his track again near Bread Fruit Wood, and brought him down with an arrow in Firefly Grove.
TWEENY (staring at her). Aren’t you tired?
LADY MARY. Tired! It was gorgeous. (She runs up a ladder and deposits her weapons on the joists. She is whistling again.)
TWEENY (snapping). I can’t abide a woman whistling.
LADY MARY (indifferently). I like it.
TWEENY (stamping her foot). Drop it, Polly, I tell you.
LADY MARY (stung). I won’t. I’m as good as you are. (They are facing each other defiantly.)