A later hour of the same day finds our heroine on her sofa, languid from the morning's emotions, and indulging in the luxury of not feeling at all well. Her world is crumbling. She cannot do without a slave, and _Robert_ can no longer fill quite the old _rôle_. Clearly a matter for counsel with her physician and friend, _Dr. Cornish_ (Mr. DION BOUCICAULT), who pleasantly diagnoses middle-age and prescribes a young adorer, than which no advice could be more nicely calculated to restore her lost feeling of queenly complacency. She sends for young _Rex Cunningham_ (Mr. MARTIN LEWIS), a morbid egoist, who nourishes a hopeless passion for her (and others), being well aware of the paramount claims of _Robert_. She contrives to let him know that she is free, and the youth, whose pet hobby is hopeless passion, at once sheers off in alarm. _Caroline_ is learning--is beginning to understand the dark philosophy of Mr. SOMERSET MAUGHAM. In despair she again turns to _Robert_. They become engaged and promptly begin quarrelling about their houses. He objects to her Futurist bathroom; she to his, which is so like a tube station that she would bathe in constant apprehension of the sudden appearance of a young man demanding tickets. _Robert_ begins to assert his masculine rights to control these and sundry matters. She realises (oh, venerable gag of the cynics!) that the fetters which would unite their bodies would put a barrier between their souls. The engagement is by mutual consent declared off.
Realising, however, in Chapter III., that she needs _Robert's_ devotion more than anything else, she conceives a plot. _Dr. Cornish_ makes an opportune call, not this time as a doctor, but as a whole-hearted admirer. With just such an one for my husband, thinks _Caroline_, _Robert_ could again assume his accustomed part of loyal friend and incense-bearer. She accordingly proposes. Appreciating the difficulty of directly refusing without discourtesy, he temporises and appears to fall in with her suggestion that he shall announce their engagement to _Robert_ and her interfering friends, who are promptly telephoned for to hear an interesting statement. But _Cornish_ proves himself a WOLFF in sheep's clothing. Instead of announcing the engagement he asserts that he has just seen _Stephen Ashley_, the husband: a lie which obtains credence with the others because of the dead man's amiable habit of occasionally putting about a rumour of his decease. _Caroline_, with superb presence of mind, seeing a glorious way out of a dilemma, adopts the lie, contrives a more or less plausible explanation, and thus establishes the _status quo ante_--the grass widow with the faithful and contented adorer.