ELIA (settling herself comfortably). Now tell me all about this one.

BELINDA (meekly). Which one?

DELIA (excitedly). Oh, are there lots?

BELINDA (severely). Only two.

DELIA. Two! You abandoned woman!

BELINDA. It's something in the air, darling. I've never been in
Devonshire in April before.

DELIA. Is it really serious this time?

BELINDA (pained). I wish you wouldn't say _this_ time, Delia. It sounds
so unromantic. If you'd only put it into French--_cette fois_--it sounds
so much better. _Cette fois_. (Parentally.) When one's daughter has just
returned from an expensive schooling in Paris, one likes to feel--

DELIA. What I meant, dear, was, am I to have a stepfather at last?

BELINDA. Now you're being _too_ French, darling.

DELIA. Why, do you still think father may be alive?

BELINDA. Why not? It's only eighteen years since he left us, and he was
quite a young man then.

DELIA. Yes, but surely you'd have heard from him in all those years, if
he'd been alive?

BELINDA. Well, he hasn't heard from _me, _and I'm still alive.

DELIA (looking earnestly at her mother). I shall never understand it.

BELINDA. Understand what?

DELIA. Were you as heavenly when you were young as you are now?

BELINDA (rapturously). Oh, I was sweet!

DELIA. And yet he left you after only six months.

BELINDA (rather crossly). I wish you wouldn't keep on saying he left me.
I left him too.

DELIA. Why?

BELINDA (smiling to herself). Well, you see, he was quite certain he
knew how to manage women, and I was quite certain I knew how to manage
men. (Thoughtfully.) If only one of us had been certain, it would have
been all right.

DELIA (seriously). What really happened, mummy? I'm grown up now, so I
think you ought to tell me.

BELINDA (thoughtfully). That was about all, you know... except for his
beard.

DELIA. Had he a beard? How funny!

BELINDA. Yes, dear, it was; but he never would see it. He took it quite
seriously.

DELIA. And did you say dramatically, "If you really loved me, you'd take
it off"?

BELINDA (apologetically). I'm afraid I did, darling.

DELIA. And what did _he_ say?

BELINDA. He said--_very_ rudely--that, if I loved _him_, I'd do my hair
in a different way.

DELIA. How ridiculous!

BELINDA (touching her hair). Of course, I didn't do it like this then.
(With a sigh.) I suppose we never ought to have married, really.

DELIA. Why did you?

BELINDA. Mother rather wanted it. (Solemnly.)