(Bringing a big one over from window.) This one?
THEODORE TRAVERS.
That's more the thing, and then, let me see, the old man—he won't sit anywhere, he'll stand in front of the fire and try to look like a stained-glass window; and then the girl——
TED MORRIS.
What girl!
THEODORE TRAVERS.
Oh, a protégée of the step-mater's—a dear little thing—suggests roses and old Chippendale. (Takes chair to window.) She can sit over here near me. (At window, he looks out.) Ah, there's the carriage going away now. They are here evidently—all on the stairs in different degrees of exhaustion.
MRS. BEN DIXON.
(Without.) Well, we can't go any higher; it must be this. (Door opens, and in bustles breezily Mrs. Ben Dixon. She is a kindly, blunt, slightly vulgar woman of about forty. Her style in dress is pronounced.) Yes. Here they are, both of them. The young villains! Oh, you bad boy! Oh, you bad girl! I'll never forgive you, neither of you. Come and kiss me. (She embraces Nelly.)
(She is followed in by Mr. Ben Dixon and Primrose Deane. Mr. Ben Dixon is an unctuous, plausible, smiling old humbug. He is dressed with the nicest regard to ostentatious respectability. Primrose is a sweet, childish girl.)