Pendleton. Well, if he's anything like that, you ought to be able to create a sensation. Then, perhaps, we shall have some real freedom.

Margaret. Pommy, do you still love me as much as you did?

Pendleton. How you sentimentalize! Do you think I'd be willing to enter into a flirtation with a strange woman, if I didn't want to keep on living with you?

Margaret. And we won't have to break up our little home, will we?

Pendleton. No, anything to save the home. [Catches himself.] My God! If any of my readers should hear me say that! To think that I, Pomeroy Pendleton, should be trying to save my own home. And yet, how characteristically paradoxical.

Margaret [interrupting]. You are going to philosophize! Give me a kiss.

[She goes to him, sits on his lap, and places her arm on his shoulder; he takes out cigarette, she lights it for him.]

Pendleton [brought back to reality]. I have some work to do—I must go.

Margaret. A kiss!

Pendleton [kisses her carelessly]. There let me go.