What are you feeling for in your pocket?

COADE. The whistle. It is a whistle I--Gone! of course it is. It's
rather a pity, but ... (Anxious.) Have I been saying awful things
to you?

MABEL. You have been making her so proud. It is a compliment to our
whole sex. You had a second chance, and it is her, again!

COADE. Of course it is. (Crestfallen.) But I see I was just the same
nice old lazy Coady as before; and I had thought that if I had a
second chance, I could do things. I have often said to you, Coady,
that it was owing to my being cursed with a competency that I didn't
write my great book. But I had no competency this time, and I haven't
written a word.

PURDIE (bitterly enough). That needn't make you feel lonely in this
house.

MRS. COADE (in a small voice). You seem to have been quite happy as an
old bachelor, dear.

COADE. I am surprised at myself, Emma, but I fear I was.

MRS. COADE (with melancholy perspicacity). I wonder if what it means
is that you don't especially need even me. I wonder if it means that
you are just the sort of amiable creature that would be happy
anywhere, and anyhow?

COADE. Oh dear, can it be as bad as that!

JOANNA (a ministering angel she). Certainly not. It is a romance, and
I won't have it looked upon as anything else.

MRS. COADE. Thank you, Joanna. You will try not to miss that whistle,
Coady?

COADE (getting the footstool for her). You are all I need.

MRS. COADE. Yes; but I am not so sure as I used to be that it is a
great compliment.

JOANNA. Coady, behave.

(There is a knock on the window.)

PURDIE (peeping). Mrs. Dearth! (His spirits revive.) She is alone. Who
would have expected that of _her_?

MABEL. She is a wild one, Jack, but I sometimes thought rather a dear;
I do hope she has got off cheaply.

(ALICE comes to them in her dinner gown.)

PURDIE (the irrepressible). Pleased to see you, stranger.

ALICE (prepared for ejection.) I was afraid such an unceremonious
entry might startle you.

PURDIE. Not a bit.

ALICE (defiant). I usually enter a house by the front door.

PURDIE. I have heard that such is the swagger way.

ALICE (simpering). So stupid of me. I lost myself in the wood ... and ...

JOANNA (genially). Of course you did. But never mind that; do tell us
your name.

LADY CAROLINE (emerging again). Yes, yes, your name.

ALICE. Of course, I am the Honourable Mrs. Finch-Fallowe.

LADY CAROLINE. Of course, of course!

PURDIE. I hope