ur pardon.
(Pause.) Good-by, Margaret ... good-by.

MARGARET. Good-by.

GILBERT. Good-by ... (Turns back once more.) Won't you at least, as a
parting gift, let me have a copy of your novel? I gave you mine.

MARGARET. It isn't out yet--it won't be till next week.

GILBERT. If you don't mind telling me ... what sort of a story is it?

MARGARET. It is the story of my life--of course disguised, so that no
one can recognize me.

GILBERT. Oh ...? How did you manage that?

MARGARET. It was quite simple. The heroine, to begin with, is not a
writer but a painter ...

GILBERT. Very clever of you.

MARGARET. Her first husband was not a cotton-manufacturer but a great
speculator--and she deceived him not with a tenor ...

GILBERT. Aha!

MARGARET. What are you laughing at?

GILBERT. So you deceived him with a tenor? That's something I didn't
know.

MARGARET. How do you know I did?

GILBERT. Why, you've just informed me yourself.

MARGARET. I ...? How? I said the heroine of my novel betrays her
husband with a baritone.

GILBERT. A basso would have been grander--a mezzo-soprano more piquant.

MARGARET. Then she goes not to Munich but to Dresden, and there has a
relation with a sculptor.

GILBERT. Myself, I suppose ... disguised?

MARGARET. Oh, very much disguised. The sculptor is young, handsome, and
a genius. In spite of all that, she leaves him.

GILBERT. For ...?

MARGARET. Guess!

GILBERT. Presumably a jockey.

MARGARET. Silly!

GILBERT. A count, then? A prince?

MARGARET. No--an archduke!

GILBERT (with a bow). Ah, you've spared no expense.

MARGARET. Yes--an archduke, who abandons his position at court for her
sake, marries her, and goes away with her to the Canary Islands.

GILBERT. The Canary Islands! That's fine. And then ...?

MARGARET. With their landing in ...

GILBERT. ... the Canaries ...

MARGARET. ... the novel ends.

GILBERT. Oh, I see ... I'm very curious--especially about the disguise.

MARGARET. Even you would not be able to recognize me, if it were not
...

GILBERT. Well ...?

MARGARET. If it were not that in the last chapter but two I've
reproduced all our correspondence!

GILBERT. What?

MARGARET. Yes--all the letters you wrote me, and all those I wrote you
are included.

GILBERT. Excuse me ... but how did you get yours to me? I've got them
all.

MARGARET. Ah, but I kept the rough drafts of them all.

GILBERT. Rough drafts?

MARGARET. Yes.

GILBERT.