Mr. Freeman: Of course I’m worried ... he left the office three-quarters of an hour too early for lunch, and he never came back at all. I haven’t set eyes on him.
Mrs. Freeman: He came home.
Mr. Freeman: Eh? What excuse did he give?
Mrs. Freeman: I only heard him upstairs in his attic ... playing the piano.
Mr. Freeman: Playing the piano!!! I ask you ... a grown man ... what is ’e? Twenty-six.
Mrs. Freeman: Twenty-eight.
Mr. Freeman: Nonsense. (Then he considers.) Oh, yes, twenty-eight. He walks calmly out of his office in the City in the middle of the morning, he leaves an afternoon’s work untouched and he comes home and PLAYS THE PIANO.
Mrs. Freeman: He was always fond of music.
Mr. Freeman: I’m fond of music, but if I was to behave like that I’d be playing a barrel organ in a fortnight ... where you going?
[Gwen has given him his liqueur, relocked the cupboard, put the keys back on the table, and is going quietly out of the room; her father’s question is mere family curiosity.