Penelope: A Comedy in Three Acts

by W. Somerset Maugham

I should like to. Good-bye.

[Exit.

Barlow.

Very nice fellow. Quite a gentleman. No one would think he was a solicitor. I shall ask him to dinner with one or two people who don’t matter.

Penelope.

There’s Dickie. D’you hear him whistling? He’s evidently in the best of spirits.

[Dickie comes in. He is a good-looking, well-dressed, professional man of five-and-thirty. He has boisterous spirits and high good humour. He is seldom put out of countenance. He has a charm of manner which explains Penelope’s infatuation.

Dickie.

Hulloa! I couldn’t make out what had become of you, Pen.

Penelope.