[_He disappears, closing the door after him. The knocking outside is repeated, then the door opens and Miss Dyott enters. She is dressed in her burlesque queen costume, her face is pale. She carries the head, broken off at the neck, of a terra-cotta bust of a woman._]
I have broken a bust now. It is an embarrassing thing to break a bust in the house of comparative strangers. Oh, will it never be daylight? Does the milkman never come to Portland Place? I have been listening at the keyhole of Vere's room--not a sound. He can sleep with the ruin of Volumnia College upon his conscience while I--[_sinking into a chair.'_] Ah, I realize now the correctness of the poet's observation--"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown!" [_Queckett comes quietly from the dark room, much terrified'._]
Rankling's in there--asleep. In the dark I sat on him. Oh, what a narrow escape I've had! [_Coming behind Miss Dyott and suddenly seeing her._] Caroline! Scylla and Charybdis! [_He bolts back into the dark room._] Miss Dyott. [_Rising alarmed._] What's that? [_Mrs. Rankling enters in a peignoir._]
I heard something fall. [_Seeing Miss Dyott._] Mrs. Queckett! [_Distantly._] Instructions were given that everybody should be called at eight. I had arranged that a more appropriate costume should be placed at your disposal. [_Seeing the broken bust._] Ah, what has happened?
[_Distressed._] Oh, bust of myself by Belt! I saw him working on it! Oh, Mrs. Queckett, is there no end of the trouble you have brought upon us?
What! Why didn't you tell us you had a husband?
Why didn't you tell me that Dinah had a husband?
Well, if you didn't know your own daughter was married how can you wonder at your ignorance of other people's domestic complications?
But that's not all. You have informed us that you are now actually contributing to a nightly entertainment of a volatile description--that you are positively being laughed at in public.
Isn't it better to be laughed at in public, and paid for it, than to be sniggered at privately for nothing?
Mrs. Queckett, you are revealing your true character.
It is the same as your own--an undervalued wife. Let me open your eyes as mine are opened. We have engaged to love and to honour two men.