he died. He was a millionaire to the last.

THE ARCHDEACON. O Mammon, Mammon! I am punished now for bowing the knee
to him. Is there nothing left of your settlement? Fifty thousand dollars
a year it secured to you, as we all thought. Only half the securities
could be called speculative. The other half were gilt-edged. What has
become of it all?

ERMYNTRUDE. The speculative ones were not paid up; and the gilt-edged
ones just paid the calls on them until the whole show burst up.

THE ARCHDEACON. Ermyntrude: what expressions!

ERMYNTRUDE. Oh bother! If you had lost ten thousand a year what
expressions would you use, do you think? The long and the short of it is
that I can't live in the squalid way you are accustomed to.

THE ARCHDEACON. Squalid!

ERMYNTRUDE. I have formed habits of comfort.

THE ARCHDEACON. Comfort!!

ERMYNTRUDE. Well, elegance if you like. Luxury, if you insist. Call it
what you please. A house that costs less than a hundred thousand dollars
a year to run is intolerable to me.

THE ARCHDEACON. Then, my dear, you had better become lady's maid to a
princess until you can find another millionaire to marry you.

ERMYNTRUDE. That's an idea. I will. [She vanishes through the curtains.]

THE ARCHDEACON. What! Come back. Come back this instant. [The lights are
lowered.] Oh, very well: I have nothing more to say. [He descends the
steps into the auditorium and makes for the door, grumbling all the
time.] Insane, senseless extravagance! [Barking.] Worthlessness!!
[Muttering.] I will not bear it any longer. Dresses, hats, furs,
gloves, motor rides: one bill after another: money going like water. No
restraint, no self-control, no decency. [Shrieking.] I say, no decency!
[Muttering again.] Nice state of things we are coming to! A pretty
world! But I simply will not bear it. She can do as she likes. I wash
my hands of her: I am not going to die in the workhouse for any
good-for-nothing, undutiful, spendthrift daughter; and the sooner that
is understood by everybody the better for all par---- [He is by this
time out of hearing in the corridor.]

THE PLAY

A hotel sitting room. A table in the centre. On it a telephone. Two
chairs at it, opposite one another. Behind it, the door. The fireplace
has a mirror in the mantelpiece.

A spinster Princess, hatted and gloved, is ushered in by the hotel
manager, spruce and artifically bland by professional habit, but
treating his customer with a condescending a