A maid-servant, appearing with a card: “This gentleman is asking for you in the parlor, Miss Reed.”
Miss Reed: “Oh! Ask him to come up here, please.—Nettie! Nettie!” She calls to her friend in the next room. “He’s coming right up, and if you don’t run you’re trapped.”
Miss Spaulding, re-appearing, cloaked and bonneted: “I don’t blame you, Ethel, comparatively speaking. You can say that everything is fair in love. He will like it, and laugh at it in you, because he’ll like everything you’ve done. Besides, you’ve no principles, and I have.”
Miss Reed: “Oh, I’ve lots of principles, Nettie, but I’ve no practice!”
Miss Spaulding: “No matter. There’s no excuse for me. I listened simply because I was a woman, and couldn’t help it; and, oh, what will he think of me?”
Miss Reed: “I won’t give you away; if you really feel so badly”—
Miss Spaulding: “Oh, do you think you can keep from telling him, Ethel dear? Try! And I will be your slave forever!” Steps are heard on the stairs outside. “Oh, there he comes!” She dashes out of the door, and closes it after her, a moment before the maid-servant, followed by Mr. Ransom, taps at it.
III.
Scene: Miss Reed opens the door, and receives Mr. Ransom with well-affected surprise and state, suffering him to stand awkwardly on the threshold for a moment.
She, coldly: “Oh!—Mr. Ransom!”