ALICK. Exactly, and when—
[Here MAGGIE enters, and all three are suddenly engrossed in the dambrod. We could describe MAGGIE at great length. But what is the use? What you really want to know is whether she was good-looking. No, she was not. Enter MAGGIE, who is not good-looking. When this is said, all is said. Enter MAGGIE, as it were, with her throat cut from ear to ear. She has a soft Scotch voice and a more resolute manner than is perhaps fitting to her plainness; and she stops short at sight of JAMES sprawling unconsciously in the company chair.]
MAGGIE. James, I wouldn’t sit on the fine chair.
JAMES. I forgot again.
[But he wishes she had spoken more sharply. Even profanation of the fine chair has not roused her. She takes up her knitting, and they all suspect that she knows what they have been talking about.]
MAGGIE. You’re late, David, it’s nearly bed-time.
DAVID [finding the subject a safe one]. I was kept late at the public meeting.
ALICK [glad to get so far away from Galashiels]. Was it a good meeting?
DAVID. Fairish. [with some heat] That young John Shand WOULD make a speech.
MAGGIE. John Shand? Is that the student Shand?