(Enter R. Mrs. Carewe, seats herself leisurely in her deck-chair, the Major affecting to ignore her presence.)
Major (turning suddenly): Emily! After all these years! This is fate!
Em.: Fate! Nothing of the sort; it’s only me. You men are always such fatalists. I deferred my departure three whole weeks, in order to come out in the same boat that I saw you were travelling by. I bribed the steward to put out chairs side by side in an
unfrequented corner, and I took enormous pains to be looking particularly attractive this morning, and then you say “This is fate.” I am looking particularly attractive, am I not?
Maj.: More than ever. Time has only added a ripeness to your charms.
Em.: I knew you’d put it exactly in those words. The phraseology of love-making is awfully limited, isn’t it? After all, the chief charm is in the fact of being made love to. You are making love to me, aren’t you?
Maj.: Emily dearest, I had already begun making advances, even before you sat down here. I also bribed the steward to put our seats together in a secluded corner. “You may consider it done, sir,” was his reply. That was immediately after breakfast.
Em.: How like a man to have his breakfast first. I attended to the seat business as soon as I left my cabin.
Maj.: Don’t be unreasonable. It was only at breakfast that I discovered your blessed presence on the boat. I paid violent and unusual attention to a flapper all through the meal in order to make you jealous. She’s probably in her cabin writing reams about me to a fellow-flapper at this very moment.
Em.: You needn’t have taken all that trouble to make me jealous, Dickie. You did that years ago, when you married another woman.