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[_To_ LADY FILSON, _blankly._] Winnie----?
LADY FILSON.
R-Randle----?
SIR RANDLE.
[_Biting his nails._] He's right. [BERTRAM _hastens to the glazed door._] Dear Bertram is right.
BERTRAM.
[_Opening the door._] You'll see him----?
LADY FILSON.
Y-yes.
SIR RANDLE.
Yes. [BERTRAM _disappears._ SIR RANDLE _paces the room at the back, waving his arms._] Oh! Oh!
LADY FILSON.
[_Going to the fireplace._] I won't be civil to him, Randle! The impertinence of his visit! I won't be civil to him!
SIR RANDLE.
A calamity! An unmerited calamity!
LADY FILSON.
[_Dropping on to the settee before the fireplace._] She's mad! That's the only excuse I can make for her!
SIR RANDLE.
Stark mad! A calamity.
LADY FILSON.
You remember the man?
SIR RANDLE.
[_Taking a book from the rack on the oblong table and hurriedly turning its pages._] A supercilious, patronizing person--son of a wretched country parson--used to loll against the wall of your _salon_--with his nose in the air.
LADY FILSON.
[_Tearfully._] A stroke of bad fortune at last, Randle! Fancy!
Everything has always gone so well with us----!
SIR RANDLE.
[_Suddenly, groaning._] Oh!
LADY FILSON.
[_Over her shoulder._] What is it? I can't bear much more----
SIR RANDLE.
He isn't even in _Who's Who_, Winnie!
[BERTRAM _returns, out of breath._
BERTRAM.
I caught her on the stairs. [_Closing the door._] She'll bring him down.
LADY FILSON.
[_Weakly._] I won't be civil to him. I refuse to be civil to him.
SIR RANDLE.
[_Replacing the book in the rack and sitting in the chair at the oblong table--groaning again._] Oh!
[_There is a short silence._ BERTRAM _slowly advances._
BERTRAM.
[_Heavily, drawing his hand across his brow._] Of course, my dear father--my dear mother--we must do our utmost to quash it--strain every nerve, I mean t'say, to stop my sister from committing this stupendous act of folly.
LADY FILSON.
[_Rocking herself to and fro._] Oh! Oh!
SIR RANDLE.
A beggarly author!
BERTRAM.
[_The picture of dejection._] But if the worst comes to the worst--if she's obdurate, I mean t'say--an alliance between Society and Literature--I suppose there's no actual disgrace in it.
SIR RANDLE.
A duffer--a duffer whose trash doesn't sell----!
