MAGGIE [again]. What is it, John?
JOHN. What if it was you that put those queer ideas into my head!
MAGGIE. Me?
JOHN. Without your knowing it, I mean.
MAGGIE. But how?
JOHN. We used to talk bits over; and it may be that you dropped the seed, so to speak.
MAGGIE. John, could it be this, that I sometimes had the idea in a rough womanish sort of way and then you polished it up till it came out a Shandism?
JOHN [slowly slapping his knee]. I believe you’ve hit it, Maggie: to think that you may have been helping me all the time—and neither of us knew it!
[He has so nearly reached a smile that no one can say what might have happened within the next moment if the COMTESSE had not reappeared.]
COMTESSE. Mr. Venables wishes to see you, Mr. Shand.