SIR J. (R. C.) Please go, there's a good girl!
(MARGARET _departs regretfully_ R. 3 E. MOLLENTRAVE _has been coming from the other side. He wears his usual air of supreme satisfaction_)
MOLLEN. (_up_ L. C.) You want me, Balsted? All going well?
SIR J. (_savagely_ R. C. _takes muffler off_) Oh, wonderfully well. The way we're progressing is extraordinary--very!
MOLLEN. (_his head on one side_) The trained observer would almost detect a suspicion of--satire.
SIR J. Satire! Heaven forbid! It's true that the girl grows fonder and fonder--
MOLLEN. She has only tasted the jam so far--but the powder's working!
SIR J. She Josephs me from morning till night! She'll be calling me Joey soon. (_down_ R. C.)
MOLLEN. (C.) No, no, Balsted! I should _not_ encourage her in the use of the diminutive!
SIR J. (_savagely_) Gurrh! Look here, Mollentrave--
MOLLEN. Impatient person! I said a month, did I not? So far but a week has passed--(MOLLENTRAVE _sits_ L. C.)
SIR J. (_sit_ R. C.) Another week will drive me crazy. I dictate law to her--the dullest stuff I can find--I tell you she likes it, she never wants me to stop!
MOLLEN. You will forgive me, my dear Balsted--but have we been quite--senile--enough?
SIR J. Senile! Have I been senile? Haven't I simulated aches and pains, and congenital insanity, till I simply detest myself? Man, she loves me the more for it!
MOLLEN. (_airily_) Merely the first stage, Balsted! Peeling!
SIR J. I can't go on--I tell you I can't! The fact is, Mollentrave, that you've been hopelessly wrong.
MOLLEN. (_emphatically_) Events are following exactly the path that I had marked out; they are, with unerring precision, pursuing to a hairs-breadth the line I had indicated in my mind.
SIR J. (_sarcastic_) Indeed! Then perhaps you'll explain--
MOLLEN. My dear Balsted, believe that I make not the slightest reflection upon your intelligence when I remark that a general's plans are rarely comprehensible to his subalterns.
SIR J. (_pettishly_) This is not a case--
MOLLEN. (_rise and go_ C.) Pardon me, but it is. If I may borrow an analogy from your legal jargon, I am the leader here, and you the junior. Is that not so?
SIR J. I have made up my mind. I shall tell her the truth.
MOLLEN. Do--and they'll drag up her body on Swanage beach to-morrow.