MOUS. (detaining her) One fond embrace before we part! (kisses her) Keep up your spirits in my absence. (going—stops) Another fond embrace before we part!
MRS. M. (with evident impatience) Psha! (MOUSER going again) You’ll not forget the message about the veil——
MOUS. Certainly not. (going—stops) Another fond embrace before——
CRUM. Go along! (pushes him out, L. D. F.) Well, coz, you certainly may say you’ve got the most attentive husband in the world.
MRS. M. Too attentive by half!
CRUM. Eh?
MRS. M. (seriously) Yes, cousin. Few women are proof against ridicule—and some husbands would do well to remember that there is a point when attention to a wife becomes a burden, and even affection a persecution. Yes, yes, cousin—he’s too attentive by half!
Exit, L. D.
CRUM. “Too attentive by half!” Then it is as I feared, and that simpleton, Mouser, doesn’t see that he is persecuting his wife with his affection. She evidently dreads a conjugal tête-à-tête, and no wonder. He never leaves her for a moment; but there he is, eternally and everlastingly at her side, “sighing like furnace,” and making himself ridiculous in her eyes. Mischief will certainly come of it. Some remedy must be devised. But what? If I could only contrive to excite Anastasia’s suspicions that her husband, like Major-General Jones, is not exactly satisfied with one attachment at a time——By this means her jealousy might be roused. But she wouldn’t believe me. No, Mouser himself must supply the materials. But how? (BETSY BAKER knocks at L. D. F.) Come in!
BETSY appears at L. D. F., with a small parcel.