John. Gosh!
Cynthia. [Her rage increasing.] To be where I am! Yes, it's just as horrible for you to turn up in my life as it would be for a dead person to insist on coming back to life and dinner and bridge!
John. Horrid idea!
Cynthia. Yes, but it's you who behave just as if you were not dead, just as if I'd not spent a fortune on your funeral. You do; you prepare to bob up at afternoon teas,—and dinners—and embarrass me to death with your extinct personality!
John. Well, of course we were married, but it didn't quite kill me.
Cynthia. [Angry and plain spoken.] You killed yourself for me—I divorced you. I buried you out of my life. If any human soul was ever dead, you are! And there's nothing I so hate as a gibbering ghost.
John. Oh, I say!
Cynthia. [With hot anger.] Go gibber and squeak where gibbering and squeaking are the fashion!
John. [Laughing and pretending to a coldness he does not feel.] And so, my dear child, I'm to abate myself as a nuisance! Well, as far as seeing you is concerned, for my part it's just like seeing a horse who's chucked you once. The bruises are O. K., and you see him with a sort of easy curiosity. Of course, you know, he'll jolly well chuck the next man!—Permit me! [John picks up her gloves, handkerchief and parasol, and gives her these as she drops them one by one in her agitation.] There's pleasure in the thought.
Cynthia. Oh!