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CAPT. G. So I have been led to believe.

MRS. G. And I shall want to know every one of your secrets–to share everything you know with you. (Stares round desperately.)

CAPT. G. So you shall, dear, so you shall–but don’t look like that.

MRS. G. For your own sake don’t stop me, Phil. I shall never talk to you in this way again. You must not tell me! At least, not now. Later on, when I’m an old matron it won’t matter, but if you love me, be very good to me now; for this part of my life I shall never forget! Have I made you understand?

CAPT. G. I think so, child. Have I said anything yet that you disapprove of?

MRS. G. Will you be very angry? That–that voice, and what you said about the engagement–

CAPT. G. But you asked to be told that, darling.

MRS. G. And that’s why you shouldn’t have told me! You must be the judge, and, oh, Pip, dearly as I love you, I shan’t be able to help you! I shall hinder you, and you must judge in spite of me!

CAPT. G. (Meditatively.) We have a great many things to find out together, God help us both–say so, Pussy–but we shall understand each other better every day; and I think I’m beginning to see now. How in the world did you come to know just the importance of giving me just that lead?

MRS. G. I’ve told you that I don’t know. Only somehow it seemed that, in all this new life, I was being guided for your sake as well as my own.

CAPT. G. (Aside.) Then Mafflin was right! They know, and we–we’re blind–all of us. (Lightly.) ‘Getting a little beyond our depth, dear, aren’t we? I’ll remember, and, if I fail, let me be punished as I deserve.

MRS. G. There shall be no punishment. We’ll start into life together from here–you and I–and no one else.

CAPT. G. And no one else. (A pause.) Your eyelashes are all wet, Sweet? Was there ever such a quaint little Absurdity?

MRS. G. Was there ever such nonsense talked before?

CAPT. G. (Knocking the ashes out of his pipe.) ‘Tisn’t what we say, it’s what we don’t say, that helps. And it’s all the profoundest philosophy. But no one would understand–even if it were put into a book.

MRS. G. The idea! No–only we ourselves, or people like ourselves–if there are any people like us.

CAPT. G. (Magisterially.) All people, not like ourselves, are blind idiots.

MRS. G. (Wiping her eyes.) Do you think, then, that there are any people as happy as we are?

CAPT. G. ‘Must be–unless we’ve appropriated all the happiness in the world.

MRS. G. (Looking towards Simla.) Poor dears! Just fancy if we have!

CAPT. G. Then we’ll hang on to the whole show, for it’s a great deal too jolly to lose–eh, wife o’ mine?

MRS. G. O Pip! Pip! How much of you is a solemn, married man and how much a horrid, slangy schoolboy?

CAPT. G. When you tell me how much of you was eighteen last birthday and how much is as old as the Sphinx and twice as mysterious, perhaps I’ll attend to you. Lend me that banjo. The spirit moveth me to yowl at the sunset.

MRS. G. Mind! It’s not tuned. Ah! How that jars.

CAPT. G. (Turning pegs.) It’s amazingly difficult to keep a banjo to proper pitch.

MRS. G. It’s the same with all musical instruments. What shall it be?

CAPT. G. ‘Vanity,’ and let the hills hear. (Sings through the first and half of the second verse. Turning to MRS. G.) Now, chorus! Sing, Pussy!

BOTH TOGETHER. (Con brio, to the horror of the monkeys who are settling for the night.)–

‘Vanity, all is Vanity,’ said Wisdom, scorning me–
I clasped my true Love’s tender hand and answered
frank and free–ee:–

‘If this be Vanity who’d be wise?
If this be Vanity who’d be wise?
If this be Vanity who’d be wi–ise?
(Crescendo.) Vanity let it be!’

MRS. G. (Defiantly to the gray of the evening sky.) ‘Vanity let it be!’

ECHO. (From the Fagoo spur.) Let it be!