ts clear.

RIDGEON. Is that clear to you? Mind: it's not clear to me. She troubles
my judgment.

SIR PATRICK. To me, it's a plain choice between a man and a lot of
pictures.

RIDGEON. It's easier to replace a dead man than a good picture.

SIR PATRICK. Colly: when you live in an age that runs to pictures and
statues and plays and brass bands because its men and women are not good
enough to comfort its poor aching soul, you should thank Providence that
you belong to a profession which is a high and great profession because
its business is to heal and mend men and women.

RIDGEON. In short, as a member of a high and great profession, I'm to
kill my patient.

SIR PATRICK. Dont talk wicked nonsense. You cant kill him. But you can
leave him in other hands.

RIDGEON. In B. B.'s, for instance: eh? [looking at him significantly].

SIR PATRICK [demurely facing his look] Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonington is
a very eminent physician.

RIDGEON. He is.

SIR PATRICK. I'm going for my hat.

Ridgeon strikes the bell as Sir Patrick makes for the hotel. A waiter
comes.

RIDGEON [to the waiter] My bill, please.

WAITER. Yes, sir.

He goes for it.

ACT III

In Dubedat's studio. Viewed from the large window the outer door is
in the wall on the left at the near end. The door leading to the inner
rooms is in the opposite wall, at the far end. The facing wall has
neither window nor door. The plaster on all the walls is uncovered and
undecorated, except by scrawlings of charcoal sketches and memoranda.
There is a studio throne (a chair on a dais) a little to the left,
opposite the inner door, and an easel to the right, opposite the outer
door, with a dilapidated chair at it. Near the easel and against the
wall is a bare wooden table with bottles and jars of oil and medium,
paint-smudged rags, tubes of color, brushes, charcoal, a small last
figure, a kettle and spirit-lamp, and other odds and ends. By the table
is a sofa, littered with drawing blocks, sketch-books, loose sheets of
paper, newspapers, books, and more smudged rags. Next the outer door is
an umbrella and hat stand, occupied partly by Louis' hats and cloak and
muffler, and partly by odds and ends of costumes. There is an old piano
stool on the near side of this door. In the corner near the inner door
is a little tea-table. A lay figure, in a cardinal's robe and hat, with
an hour-glass in one hand and a scythe slung on its back, smiles with
inane malice at Lo