ing of a bell off the stage. The valet enters.

"Mr. Harding is downstairs, my lady."

"Show him up, Ransome."

A moment later Mr. Harding enters. He is a narrow young man in a frock
coat. His face is weak. It has to be. Mr. Harding is meant to typify
weakness. Lady Cicely walks straight to him. She puts her two hands on
his shoulders and looks right into his face.

"MY DARLING," she says. Just like that. In capital letters. You can feel
the thrill of it run through the orchestra chairs. All the audience look
at Mr. Harding, some with opera glasses, others with eyeglasses on
sticks. They can see that he is just the sort of ineffectual young man
that a starved woman in a problem play goes mad over.

Lady Cicely repeats "My darling" several times. Mr. Harding says "Hush,"
and tries to disengage himself. She won't let him. He offers to ring
for tea. She won't have any. "Oh, Jack," she says. "I can't go on any
longer. I can't. When first you loved me, I thought I could. But I
can't. It throttles me here--this house, this life, everything----" She
has drawn him to a sofa and has sunk down in a wave at his feet. "Do you
remember, Jack, when first you came, in Italy, that night, at Amalfi,
when we sat on the piazza of the palazzo?" She is looking rapturously
into his face.

Mr. Harding says that he does.

"And that day at Fiesole among the orange trees, and Pisa and the
Capello de Terisa and the Mona Lisa--Oh, Jack, take me away from all
this, take me to the Riviera, among the contadini, where we can stand
together with my head on your shoulder just as we did in the Duomo at
Milano, or on the piaggia at Verona. Take me to Corfu, to the Campo
Santo, to Civita Vecchia, to Para Noia--anywhere----"

Mr. Harding, smothered with her kisses, says, "My dearest, I will, I
will." Any man in the audience would do as much. They'd take her to
Honolulu.

While she is speaking, Sir John's voice had been heard off the stage.
"No, thank you, Ransome, I'll get them myself, I know just where I left
them." Sir John enters hurriedly, advances and picks up his papers on
the table--turns--and stands----

He sees his wife's attitude and hears her say "Riviera, Amalfi,
Orangieri, Contadini and Capello Santo." It is enough. He drops his
parliamentary papers. They fall against the fire irons with a crash.
These in falling upset a small table with one leg. The ball of wool that
is on it falls to the floor. The noise of this disturbs the lover