sen badly. The greater my experience, the more do I value my
uncle Homeware's company.

(She is affectionate to excess but has a roguish eye withal, as of
one who knows that uncle Homeware suspects all young men and most
young women.)

HOMEWARE: Agree with the lady promptly, my friend.

ARDEN: I would gladly boast of so lengthened an experience, Lady
Pluriel.

LYRA: I must have a talk with Astraea, my dear uncle. Her letters breed
suspicions. She writes feverishly. The last one hints at service on the
West Coast of Africa.

HOMEWARE: For the draining of a pestiferous land, or an enlightenment of
the benighted black, we could not despatch a missionary more effective
than the handsomest widow in Great Britain.

LYRA: Have you not seen signs of disturbance?

HOMEWARE: A great oration may be a sedative.

LYRA: I have my suspicions.

HOMEWARE: Mr. Arden, I could counsel you to throw yourself at Lady
Pluriel's feet, and institute her as your confessional priest.

ARDEN: Madam, I am at your feet. I am devoted to the lady.

LYRA: Devoted. There cannot be an objection. It signifies that a man
asks for nothing in return!

HOMEWARE: Have a thought upon your words with this lady, Mr. Arden!

ARDEN: Devoted, I said. I am. I would give my life for her.

LYRA: Expecting it to be taken to-morrow or next day? Accept my
encomiums. A male devotee is within an inch of a miracle. Women had been
looking for this model for ages, uncle.

HOMEWARE: You are the model, Mr Arden!

LYRA: Can you have intended to say that it is in view of marriage you
are devoted to the widow of Professor Towers?

ARDEN: My one view.

LYRA: It is a star you are beseeching to descend.

ARDEN: It is.

LYRA: You disappoint me hugely. You are of the ordinary tribe after all;
and your devotion craves an enormous exchange, infinitely surpassing the
amount you bestow.

ARDEN: It does. She is rich in gifts; I am poor. But I give all I have.

LYRA: These lovers, uncle Homeware!

HOMEWARE: A honey-bag is hung up and we have them about us. They would
persuade us that the chief business of the world is a march to the
altar.

ARDEN: With the right partner, if the business of the world is to be
better done.

LYRA: Which right partner has been chosen on her part, by a veiled
woman, who marches back from the altar to discover that she has chained
herself to the skeleton of an idea, or is in charge of that devouring
tyrant, an uxorious husb