ere she is not wanted.'

(Joanna draws up her sveldt figure, but a screw of one mouth often
calls for a similar demonstration from another, and both ladies
smile. They nearly become friends.)

JOANNA. You certainly have good ears.

ALICE (drawling). Yes, they have always been rather admired.

JOANNA (snapping). By the painters for whom you sat when you were an
artist's model?

ALICE (measuring her). So that has leaked out, has it!

JOANNA (ashamed). I shouldn't have said that.

ALICE (their brief friendship over). Do you think I care whether you
know or not?

JOANNA (making an effort to be good). I'm sure you don't. Still, it
was cattish of me.

ALICE. It was.

JOANNA (in flame). I don't see it.

(MRS. DEARTH laughs and forgets her, and with the entrance of a man
from the dining room JOANNA drifts elsewhere. Not so much a man, this
newcomer, as the relic of what has been a good one; it is the most he
would ever claim for himself. Sometimes, brandy in hand, he has
visions of the WILL DEARTH he used to be, clear of eye, sees him but
a field away, singing at his easel or, fishing-rod in hand, leaping a
stile. Our WILL stares after the fellow for quite a long time, so
long that the two melt into the one who finishes LOB's brandy. He is
scarcely intoxicated as he appears before the lady of his choice, but
he is shaky and has watery eyes.)

(ALICE has had a rather wild love for this man, or for that other one,
and he for her, but somehow it has gone whistling down the wind. We
may expect therefore to see them at their worst when in each other's
company.)

DEARTH (who is not without a humorous outlook on his own degradation).
I am uncommonly flattered, Alice, to hear that you have sent for me.
It quite takes me aback.

ALICE (with cold distaste). It isn't your company I want, Will.

DEARTH. You know. I felt that Purdie must have delivered your message
wrongly.

ALICE. I want you to come with us on this mysterious walk and keep an
eye on Lob.

DEARTH. On poor little Lob? Oh, surely not.

ALICE. I can't make the man out. I want you to tell me something; when
he invited us here, do you think it was you or me he specially
wanted?

DEARTH. Oh, you. He made no bones about it; said there was something
about you that made him want uncommonly to have you down here.

ALICE. Will, try to remember this: did he ask us for any particular
time?

DEARTH. Yes, he was particular about its being Midsummer week.

A