Father, I’m sorry if what I said vexed you. Perhaps I spoke too strongly.
DE MULLIN
(with great dignity)
Very well, Janet. You will remain with us.
JANET
No, father, that’s not possible. For Johnny’s sake, as well as my own, it would be madness for us to live down here.
DE MULLIN
For Johnny’s sake?
JANET
Yes, Johnny’s. In London we’re not known, he and I. There he’s simply Johnny Seagrave, the son of a respectable widow who keeps a hat-shop. Here he is the son of Janet De Mullin who ran away from home one night eight years ago and whose name was never mentioned again by her parents until one fine day she turned up with an eight-year-old boy and said she was married. How long would they take to see through that story down here, do you think?