Mrs. Campbell, in a very awful voice: "Willis! Get me some water—some wine! Help me! Ah! Don't touch me! It was you, you who did it all! Oh, now what shall I do?" She drops her head upon Campbell's shoulder, while Welling watches them in stupefaction.
Campbell: "It's about a million times nicer than we could have expected. That's the way with a nice thing when you get it started. Well, young man, you're done for; and so are we, for that matter. We supposed that note which you addressed to Mrs. Campbell was intended for Miss Rice—"
Welling: "Ho, ho, ho! Ah, ha, ha! Miss Rice? Ha—"
Campbell: "I'm glad you like it. You'll enjoy the rest of it still better. We thought it was for Miss Rice, and my wife neatly imitated your hand on an envelope and sent it over to her just before you came in. Funny, isn't it? Laugh on! Don't mind us!"
Welling, aghast: "Thought my note was for Miss Rice? Sent it to her? Gracious powers!" They all stand for a moment in silence, and then Welling glances at the paper in his hand. "But there's some mistake. You haven't sent my note to Miss Rice: here it is now!"
Campbell: "Oh, that's the best of the joke. Mrs. Campbell took a copy"—Mrs. Campbell moans—"she meant to have some fun with you about it, and it's ten times as much fun as I expected; and in her hurry she sent off her copy and kept the original. Perhaps that makes it better."
Mrs. Campbell, detaching herself from him and confronting Mr. Welling: "No; worse! She'll think we've been trying to hoax her, and she'll be in a towering rage; and she'll show the note to Miss Greenway, and you'll be ruined. Oh poor Mr. Welling! Oh, what a fatal, fatal—mix!" She abandons herself in an attitude of extreme desperation upon a chair, while the men stare at her, till Campbell breaks the spell by starting forward and ringing the bell on the table.
Mrs. Campbell: "What are you doing, Willis?"
Campbell: "Ringing for Jane." As Jane appears: "Did you give Miss Rice the note?"