Young Mrs. Bemis: ‘Yes, indeed, I think so too, Mrs. Roberts. If Mr. Bemis—Alfred, I mean—and papa hadn’t been with me when you came out there to prepare us, I don’t know what I should have done. I should certainly have died, or gone through the floor.’ She looks fondly up into the face of her husband for approval, where he stands behind her chair, and furtively gives him her hand for pressure.’
Young Mr. Bemis: ‘Somebody ought to write to the Curwens—Mrs. Curwen, that is—about it.’
Mrs. Bemis, taking away her hand: ‘Oh yes, papa, do write!’
Lawton: ‘I will, my dear. Even Mrs. Curwen, dazzling away in another sphere—hemisphere—and surrounded by cardinals and all the other celestial lights there at Rome, will be proud to exploit this new evidence of American enterprise. I can fancy the effect she will produce with it.’
Mrs. Roberts: ‘And the Millers—what a shame they couldn’t come! How excited they would have been!—that is, Mrs. Miller. Is their baby very bad, Doctor?’
Lawton: ‘Well, vaccination is always a very serious thing—with a first child. I should say, from the way Mrs. Miller feels about it, that Miller wouldn’t be able to be out for a week to come yet.’
Mrs. Roberts: ‘Oh, how ridiculous you are, Doctor!’
Bemis, rising feebly from his chair: ‘Well, now that it’s all explained, Mrs. Roberts, I think I’d better go home; and if you’ll kindly have them telephone for a carriage—’
Mrs. Roberts: ‘No, indeed, Mr. Bemis! We shall not let you go. Why, the idea! You must stay and take dinner with us, just the same.’
Bemis: ‘But in this state—’