iard-room
door.] Look here! Rehearsal to-morrow is directly after breakfast;
from "Eccles enters breathless" to the end.

MABEL. Whatever made you choose "Caste," DOT? You know it's awfully
difficult.

DOT. Because it's the only play that's not too advanced. [The girls
all go into the billiard-room.]

LADY CHESHIRE. Where's Bill, Ronny?

KEITH. [With a grimace] I rather think Sir William and he are in
Committee of Supply--Mem-Sahib.

LADY CHESHIRE. Oh!

She looks uneasily at the dining-room; then follows the girls
out.

LATTER. [In the tone of one resuming an argument] There can't be
two opinions about it, Ronny. Young Dunning's refusal is simply
indefensible.

KEITH. I don't agree a bit, John.

LATTER. Of course, if you won't listen.

KEITH. [Clipping a cigar] Draw it mild, my dear chap. We've had
the whole thing over twice at least.

LATTER. My point is this----

KEITH. [Regarding LATTER quizzically with his halfclosed eyes]
I know--I know--but the point is, how far your point is simply
professional.

LATTER. If a man wrongs a woman, he ought to right her again.
There's no answer to that.

KEITH. It all depends.

LATTER. That's rank opportunism.

KEITH. Rats! Look here--Oh! hang it, John, one can't argue this out
with a parson.

LATTER. [Frigidly] Why not?

HAROLD. [Who has entered from the dining-room] Pull devil, pull
baker!

KEITH. Shut up, Harold!

LATTER. "To play the game" is the religion even of the Army.

KEITH. Exactly, but what is the game?

LATTER. What else can it be in this case?

KEITH. You're too puritanical, young John. You can't help it--line
of country laid down for you. All drag-huntin'! What!

LATTER. [With concentration] Look here!

HAROLD. [Imitating the action of a man pulling at a horse's head]
'Come hup, I say, you hugly beast!'

KEITH. [To LATTER] You're not going to draw me, old chap. You
don't see where you'd land us all. [He smokes calmly]

LATTER. How do you imagine vice takes its rise? From precisely this
sort of thing of young Dunning's.

KEITH. From human nature, I should have thought, John. I admit that
I don't like a fellow's leavin' a girl in the lurch; but I don't see
the use in drawin' hard and fast rules. You only have to break 'em.
Sir William and you would just tie Dunning and the girl up together,
willy-nilly, to save appearances, and ten to one but there'll be the
deuce to pay