THE SCARLET PARASOL.
Scene I.—Terrace in front of quaint old country house. Viola Travers and Muriel Vane on garden-chairs. Viola is twenty, dark-eyed, and animated; she holds a scarlet parasol. Muriel is eighteen; she has very fair hair, parted with puritanical precision; the naïve innocence of her manner is not without a suggestion of artistic premeditation.
Muriel (embroidering). It is a marvel to me, Viola, that you can ever have a discontented moment in a house so Elizabethan as this.
Viola. It is lovely, Muriel; a background for mystery and romance. And I have no romance. I have everything else; but I have not a romance.
Muriel. You have Albert.
Viola. You know that Albert is not a romance.
Muriel. Once——