[_Rising._] Ha! [_Calmly._] No, my dear Sophy, I wasn't aware that your _fiancé_ is in the house. So the situation comes home to you a little more poignantly now, does it?
[_Rising and going to the passage-door._] Unlock the door! where's the key?
Wait, wait, wait! And you're going to keep your mouth shut after all, are you?
[_Rattling the door-handle._] Yes, yes, Unlock it!
[_Thoughtfully._] Tsch, tsch, tsch! [_Sharply, with a snap of the fingers._] Yes--by Jove--! [_Pointing to the chair by the writing-table._] Sit down. [_Imperatively._] Sit down. [_She sits, wonderingly. He goes to the table, selects a plain sheet of paper and lays it before her. Then he hands her a pen._] Write as I tell you.
[_Pointing to the ink._] Ink. [_Dictating._] "My lord." [_She writes; he walks about as he dictates._] "My lord. I am truly obliged to you--"
[_Sternly._] Go on. [_She writes._] "For your great liberality, and in once more availing myself of it I quite understand--"
"I quite understand that our friendship comes to an end." [_She rises and faces him._] Go on.
How dare you try to make me write such a thing! [_He turns from her and, book in hand, resumes his recumbent position on the sofa. She approaches him, falteringly._] What would you do with that, if I did write it?
Simply hold it in my possession, as security for your silence, until after my marriage with Miss Eden; then return it to you.
[_Contemptuously._] Trust you! [_After a pause, she returns to the writing-table and takes up her pen again._] Where were we?
"That our friendship comes to an end." [_She writes. He rises and looks over her shoulder._] "While thanking you again for past and present favours--"
"I undertake not to approach or annoy you in the future--"
"Upon any pretext whatsoever. Yours respectfully--" [_After watching the completion of the letter._] Date it vaguely--[_with a wave of the hand_] "Monday afternoon." Blot it. [_Moving away._] That's right. [_She rises, reading the letter with staring eyes. Then she comes to him and yields the letter, and he folds it neatly and puts it into his breast-pocket._] Thank you. I think I need detain you no longer.
[_With a gasp._] Ah! stop a bit! no, I won't!
[_Wildly._] Why, it's like selling Muriel! Just to get myself out of this, I'm simply handing her over to you! I won't do it! I won't! [_She rushes to the bell-rope and tugs at it again and again._] She sha'n't marry you! she sha'n't! I've said she sha'n't, and she sha'n't! [_Leaving the bell-rope and facing him fiercely._] Oh, let your precious Duchess go scot-free! After all, what does it matter who the woman is you've been sporting with, so that Miss Muriel is kept from falling into your clutches! Yes, I'll make short work of _you_, my lord. The ladies shall hear from _my_ mouth of the lively half-hour I've spent with you, and how I've suddenly funked the consequences and _raised a hullabaloo_! Now, my lord! now then! now then!