ly chafe at the terrible inactivity. I
want to be up and about, shooting, riding, cricket, football, judo, the
usual run of manly sports.

SYLVIA. Knowing you for what you are--lazy, luxurious----

BOBBIE (_pained_). Please, please, please, not in front of the child.
(JOYCE _kicks_). It's demoralizing for her to hear her idolized brother
held up to ridicule.

JOYCE. You're not my idolized brother at all--Oliver is. (_Turning away,
pouting._)

BOBBIE (_seated_ R. _on Chesterfield, sweetly_). If that were really so,
dear, I know you have much too kind a heart to let me know it.

SYLVIA. What is the matter with you this afternoon, Bobbie--you are very
up in the air about something.

(JOYCE _takes her coat off, puts on back of chair_ R. _of table_).

BOBBIE (_rising and sitting on club fender_). Merely another instance of
the triumph of mind over matter; in this case a long and healthy walk
was the matter. I went into the lobby to put on my snow boots and
then--as is usually the case with me--my mind won. I thought of tea,
crumpets and comfort. Oliver has gone without me, he simply bursts with
health and extraordinary dullness. Personally I shall continue to be
delicate and interesting.

SYLVIA (_seriously_). You may _have_ to work, Bobbie.

BOBBIE. Really, Sylvia, you do say the most awful things, remember Joyce
is only a school-girl, she'll be quite shocked.

JOYCE. We work jolly hard at school, anyhow.

BOBBIE. Oh, no, you don't. I've read the modern novelists, and I _know_;
all you do is walk about with arms entwined, and write poems of tigerish
adoration to your mistresses. It's a beautiful existence.

JOYCE. You are a silly ass. (_Picks up magazine._)

SYLVIA. It's all very well to go on fooling Bobbie, but _really_ we
shall have to pull ourselves together a bit. Mother's very worried, as
you know, money troubles are perfectly beastly, and she hasn't told us
nearly all. I do so hate her to be upset, poor darling.

BOBBIE. What can we do? (_Sits_ L. _end of Chesterfield._ JOYCE _puts
down magazine and listens._)

SYLVIA. Think of a way to make money.

BOBBIE. It's difficult now that the war is over.

SYLVIA. That's cheap wit, dear; also it's the wrong moment for it.
(JOYCE _giggles._)

BOBBIE. It's always the wrong moment for cheap wit, admitting for one
moment that it was, which it wasn't.

JOYCE. Oh, do shut up, you make my head go round.

(_Enter_ EVANGELINE _downstairs; she is tall