Susan: What then, pray?
Rose: Nothing. I limped to the car. That’s all.
Susan: And this stranger is your Romeo! Rose, you are a goose. Put him out of your head.
Rose: How can I put him out when he persists in staying in? There, now you have my story.
Susan (starting at the sound of footsteps): Hush! I think your father and the doctor are coming back.
(Susan busies herself with one of the lamps at L., and Rose takes up a book and pretends to read. Her face is turned away from the right entrance. Enter Mr. Valdingam and Dr. Van Hyde.)
Mr. Valdingam: Doctor, I rely upon you now with the utmost confidence. What a knowledge is yours! How vast, how intricate a subject is this of insanity! I marvel that you should have learned so much in so few years. I’ll wager that you have not passed your thirty-fifth birthday.
Dr. Van Hyde: You have made a nearly correct guess, Mr. Mr Valdingam. I am in my thirty-sixth year. But I have enjoyed unusual experience.
(At the sound of Dr. Van Hyde’s voice, Rose half-rises, then hides her face with her book.)
Rose (aside): Good gracious! I have heard that voice before. (She glances over the edge of the book toward the two men.) It is he. (She slips out of her chair, and joins Susan. The backs of the two women are turned to the men, who are conversing sotto voce.) Aunt Susan!