THE COLUMBINE (screaming). Lift me down, somebody: I’m going to fall. Papa: lift me down.
CRAMPTON (anxiously running to her and taking her hands). My child!
DOLLY (jumping down with his help). Thanks: so nice of you. (Phil, putting his hat into his belt, sits on the side of the table and pours out some claret cup. Crampton returns to his place on the ottoman in great perplexity.) Oh, what fun! Oh, dear. (She seats herself with a vault on the front edge of the table, panting.) Oh, claret cup! (She drinks.)
BOHUN (in powerful tones). This is the younger lady, is it?
DOLLY (slipping down off the table in alarm at his formidable voice and manner). Yes, sir. Please, who are you?
MRS. CLANDON. This is Mr. Bohun, Dolly, who has very kindly come to help us this evening.
DOLLY. Oh, then he comes as a boon and a blessing —
PHILIP. Sh!
CRAMPTON. Mr. Bohun — McComas: I appeal to you. Is this right? Would you blame my sister’s family for objecting to this?
DOLLY (flushing ominously). Have you begun again?
CRAMPTON (propitiating her). No, no. It’s perhaps natural at your age.
DOLLY (obstinately). Never mind my age. Is it pretty?
CRAMPTON. Yes, dear, yes. (He sits down in token of submission.)
DOLLY (following him insistently). Do you like it?
CRAMPTON. My child: how can you expect me to like it or to approve of it?
DOLLY (determined not to let him off). How can you think it pretty and not like it?
McCOMAS (rising, angry and scandalized). Really I must say — (Bohun, who has listened to Dolly with the highest approval, is down on him instantly.)
BOHUN. No: don’t interrupt, McComas. The young lady’s method is right. (To Dolly, with tremendous emphasis.) Press your questions, Miss Clandon: press your questions.
DOLLY (rising). Oh, dear, you are a regular overwhelmer! Do you always go on like this?
BOHUN (rising). Yes. Don’t you try to put me out of countenance, young lady: you’re too young to do it. (He takes McComas’s chair from beside Mrs. Clandon’s and sets it beside his own.) Sit down. (Dolly, fascinated, obeys; and Bohun sits down again. McComas, robbed of his seat, takes a chair on the other side between the table and the ottoman.) Now, Mr. Crampton, the facts are before you — both of them. You think you’d like to have your two youngest children to live with you. Well, you wouldn’t — (Crampton tries to protest; but Bohun will not have it on any terms.) No, you wouldn’t: you think you would; but I know better than you. You’d want this young lady here to give up dressing like a stage columbine in the evening and like a fashionable columbine in the morning. Well, she won’t — never. She thinks she will; but —
DOLLY (interrupting him). No I don’t. (Resolutely.) I’ll n e v e r give up dressing prettily. Never. As Gloria said to that man in Madeira, never, never, never while grass grows or water runs.
VALENTINE (rising in the wildest agitation). What! What! (Beginning to speak very fast.) When did she say that? Who did she say that to?
BOHUN (throwing himself back with massive, pitying remonstrance). Mr. Valentine —
VALENTINE (pepperily). Don’t you interrupt me, sir: this is something really serious. I i n s i s t on knowing who Miss Clandon said that to.
DOLLY. Perhaps Phil remembers. Which was it, Phil? number three or number five?
VALENTINE. Number five!!!
PHILIP. Courage, Valentine. It wasn’t number five: it was only a tame naval lieutenant that was always on hand — the most patient and harmless of mortals.
GLORIA (coldly). What are we discussing now, pray?
VALENTINE (very red). Excuse me: I am sorry I interrupted. I shall intrude no further, Mrs. Clandon. (He bows to Mrs. Clandon and marches away into the garden, boiling with suppressed rage.)
DOLLY. Hmhm!
PHILIP. Ahah!
GLORIA. Please go on, Mr. Bohun.
DOLLY (striking in as Bohun, frowning formidably, collects himself for a fresh grapple with the case). You’re going to bully us, Mr. Bohun.
BOHUN. I —
DOLLY (interrupting him). Oh, yes, you are: you think you’re not; but you are. I know by your eyebrows.
BOHUN (capitulating). Mrs. Clandon: these are clever children — clear headed, well brought up children. I make that admission deliberately. Can you, in return, point out to me any way of inducting them to hold their tongues?
MRS. CLANDON. Dolly, dearest — !
PHILIP. Our old failing, Dolly. Silence! (Dolly holds her mouth.)
MRS. CLANDON. Now, Mr. Bohun, before they begin again —
WAITER (softer). Be quick, sir: be quick.
DOLLY (beaming at him). Dear William!
PHILIP. Sh!
BOHUN (unexpectedly beginning by hurling a question straight at Dolly). Have you any intention of getting married?
DOLLY. I! Well, Finch calls me by my Christian name.
McCOMAS. I will not have this. Mr. Bohun: I use the young lady’s Christian name naturally as an old friend of her mother’s.
DOLLY. Yes, you call me Dolly as an old friend of my mother’s. But what about Dorothee-ee-a? (McComas rises indignantly.)
CRAMPTON (anxiously, rising to restrain him). Keep your temper, McComas. Don’t let us quarrel. Be patient.
McCOMAS. I will not be patient. You are shewing the most wretched weakness of character, Crampton. I say this is monstrous.
DOLLY. Mr. Bohun: please bully Finch for us.
BOHUN. I will. McComas: you’re making yourself ridiculous. Sit down.
McCOMAS. I —
BOHUN (waving him down imperiously). No: sit down, sit down. (McComas sits down sulkily; and Crampton, much relieved, follows his example.)
DOLLY (to Bohun, meekly). Thank you.
BOHUN. Now, listen to me, all of you. I give no opinion, McComas, as to how far you may or may not have committed yourself in the direction indicated by this young lady. (McComas is about to protest.) No: don’t interrupt me: if she doesn’t marry you she will marry somebody else. That is the solution of the difficulty as to her not bearing her father’s name. The other lady intends to get married.
GLORIA (flushing). Mr. Bohun!
BOHUN. Oh, yes, you do: you don’t know it; but you do.
GLORIA (rising). Stop. I warn you, Mr. Bohun, not to answer for my intentions.
BOHUN (rising). It’s no use, Miss Clandon: you can’t put me down. I tell you your name will soon be neither Clandon nor Crampton; and I could tell you what it will be if I chose. (He goes to the other end of the table, where he unrolls his domino, and puts the false nose on the table. When he moves they all rise; and Phil goes to the window. Bohun, with a gesture, summons the waiter to help him in robing.) Mr. Crampton: your notion of going to law is all nonsense: your children will be of age before you could get the point decided. (Allowing the waiter to put the domino on his shoulders.) You can do nothing but make a friendly arrangement. If you want your family more than they want you, you’ll get the worse of the arrangement: