Penelope: A Comedy in Three Acts

by W. Somerset Maugham

I wonder why on earth Penelope should insist on my reading the Church Times.

Barlow.

I’ve just had a telegram from her.

Mrs. Golightly.

So have I, asking me to come at once. [With a ray of light.] Perhaps we shall find some explanation in the Church Times.

Barlow.

Nonsense. What can the Church Times have to do with the Archduchess Anastasia?

Mrs. Golightly.

My dear Davenport, what are you talking about?

[Peyton enters to announce Professor Golightly and immediately afterwards goes out. Golightly is a tall, spare man with grey hair, well groomed and alert. He is neatly dressed, quite tidy, and might just as well be a lawyer or a doctor as a professor of mathematics. He is clean-shaven.