COLONEL.

Wife of my old lieutenant. Captain now.

LADY WARGRAVE.

Wife of Jack Sylvester! I am pleased to meet you. I have known your husband almost from a boy. But I don't see him.

[_Looking round._

GERALD [_confused_].

He has just gone.

[_LADY WARGRAVE looks from one to another. Slight pause._

MRS. SYLVESTER.

Mr. Cazenove and I are collaborating.

LADY WARGRAVE.

Oh! Captain Sylvester's wife is collaborating with _you?_

GERALD.

On the ethics of marriage.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

Viewed from the standpoint of the higher morality.

LADY WARGRAVE.

Ah! [_Drops back into her seat, helped by MARGERY._] That will be a very interesting work.[_MARGERY retires up._] Did you do very much down at Mapledurham?

GERALD.

Not _very_ much, I'm afraid.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

Mr. Cazenove met a friend up the river.

LADY WARGRAVE.

A friend? Margery, you didn't tell me that.

MARGERY [_advancing, and with a slight curtsey_].

I didn't know, my lady.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

An old friend.

COLONEL.

Perhaps the old friend was Margery herself?

MRS. SYLVESTER [_perplexed and curious_].

Your maid was at Mapledurham?

LADY WARGRAVE.

Her father lives there. Theodore, don't you think Margery looks all the better for her holiday?

COLONEL [_with enthusiasm_].

If it is possible----

LADY WARGRAVE.

Theodore! [_Aside to him, stopping his mouth with her fan._]

COLONEL [_subsides_].

Peccavi! [_Sotto voce._]

LADY WARGRAVE.

Doesn't she look brown?

GERALD.

Well, up the river everybody does. It was hot weather, too.

LADY WARGRAVE.

It must have been. You should have seen her hands. They were all over blisters.

COLONEL.

Ah, that was the rowing!

[_Pantomime as before._

LADY WARGRAVE.