STEVE, as he makes Alice comfortable by the fire, ‘How did you leave them at home?’
ALICE, relapsing into gloom, ‘All hating me.’
STEVE. ‘This man says that home is the most delightful club in the world.’
ALICE. ‘I am not a member; I have been blackballed by my own baby. Robert, I dined in state with Cosmo, and he was so sulky that he ate his fish without salt rather than ask me to pass it.’
ALICE. ‘Amy said she had a headache and went to bed. I spoke to her through the door before I came out, but she wouldn’t answer.’
COLONEL. ‘Why didn’t you go in, memsahib?’
ALICE. ‘I did venture to think of it, but she had locked the door. Robert, I really am worried about Amy. She seems to me to behave oddly. There can’t be anything wrong?’
COLONEL. ‘Of course not, Alice--eh, Steve?’
ALICE, smiling, ‘It’s much Steve knows about women.’
STEVE. ‘I’m not so unattractive to women, Alice, as you think.’
COLONEL. ‘What he means, my dear, is that you should see him with elderly ladies.’
ALICE. ‘Steve, this to people who know you.’ Here something happens to Amy’s skirt. She has opened the door to hear, then in alarm shut it, leaving a fragment of skirt caught in the door. There, unseen, it bides its time.
STEVE, darkly, ‘Don’t be so sure you know me, Alice.’
COLONEL, enjoying himself, ‘Let us tell her, Steve! I am dying to tell her.’
COLONEL. ‘We mustn’t tell you, Alice, because it is a woman’s secret--a poor little fond elderly woman. Our friend is very proud of his conquest. See how he is ruffling his feathers. I shouldn’t wonder you know, though you and I are in the way to-night.’
But Alice’s attention is directed in another direction: to a little white object struggling in the clutches of a closed door at the back of the room. Steve turns to see what she is looking at, and at the same moment the door opens sufficiently to allow a pretty hand to obtrude, seize the kitten, or whatever it was, and softly reclose the door. For one second Alice did think it might be a kitten, but she knows now that it is part of a woman’s dress. As for Steve thus suddenly acquainted with his recent visitor’s whereabouts, his mouth opens wider than the door. He appeals mutely to Alice not to betray his strange secret to the Colonel.