Sir W.: It's no laughing matter!
Jem: Ha! ha! I daresay not.
Kitty: Irving and Ellen Terry are not in it! (Continues laughing.)
Lady Flo: What can you mean?
Jem: Oh, don't pretend that you and my uncle have not been getting up this little comedy of a quarrel, merely to show Kitty and me what fools we look when we are fighting! Why! It was better than any play I ever saw!
Sir W.: It's all been in sober earnest, I assure you.
(Lady Flo recovers slightly. Looks first at Jem, then at Kitty, and lastly at Sir William.)
Lady Flo (slowly): You call—all—this—a little comedy? (Recovers more, but very gradually.)
Kitty: Why, yes! Don't attempt to say it wasn't—(slyly)—especially after all you told me this morning about how cleverly you manage my uncle. Just let me see you glance at him in the way you said you could. (Whispering.)
(Lady Flo further recovers herself. Her expression softens. After a minute or two she smiles meaningly to herself.)