Enter, R. hastily, Susan.
Susan. Young man, that was a false alarm. There wasn’t any fire.
Ralph. Fire! No, my poetry is not as hot as Mrs. Wheelwright’s.
Susan. (Ignores R.) I lost a page of my book. I couldn’t lose the least bit of it for the world. It is my heart’s blood, drop by drop—oh, there it is! (Picks page under chair.) Oh, how I’ve worked on that book, I’ve burned for hours the midnight oil with aching head and ceaseless toil. There! I didn’t mean to make poetry.
Ralph. (Sarcastically.) You haven’t made any.
Susan. (With withering glance.) Who are you, I’d like to know?
Ralph. I am Ralph Hyde-Arlington, poet, author of “The Dead Canary, and Other Poems.”
Susan. And I am Susan Ann Brown, novelist, author of “Winds that Sough in the Night.”
Ralph. Excuse me, madam, but you have interrupted us. I was about to read my poems to Mr. Powers.