I'm not Margery now!

SYLVESTER [_seriously_].

I ask Mrs. Cazenove's pardon. [_In a casual tone_] You don't object to the collaboration, then?

MARGERY.

I think it's fun! They are so serious over it. As if the world depended on a book! As if there were no Providence or anything, and they two had to keep creation going by scratching upon little bits of paper! I love to watch them, biting at their pens, and staring at that little crack up there. [_Looking at the ceiling. SYLVESTER looks also._] I often think to myself, you may well look--there's something there that'll keep the world going round, just as it is, long after your precious book is dust and ashes.

SYLVESTER.

Then you do watch them, Margery--Mrs. Cazenove?

MARGERY.

Oh, often, from my room. [_Indicates curtains._] But I can scarcely keep from laughing all the time. Some day I mean to have such fun with them! I mean to steal in here, [_business_] and put my head out, so--and just when they are putting the world right, say Bo!

[_Runs back, and bursts into a peal of laughter. SYLVESTER laughs also._

_Re-enter WELLS, L._

WELLS.

Miss Vivash!

[_Exit WELLS, L._

_Enter VICTORIA._

VICTORIA.

Good morning, dear. [_Kisses MARGERY._] What! Captain Sylvester! you here, and Agnes not?

MARGERY.

Mrs. Sylvester is coming!

VICTORIA.

No need to apologize! A wife is just as much ent.i.tled to entertain another woman's husband as a husband to entertain another man's wife.

You're getting on, dear. That's philosophy!

MARGERY.

Gerald is in the next room!

VICTORIA.

Then it's not philosophy!

MARGERY.

I'll go and wake him up.

[_Exit, R._

VICTORIA.

Humph! [_Sits._] Well, how long do you give it?

SYLVESTER.

Do you mean philosophy?

VICTORIA.

The Cazenove _menage._ Another six months? These love-matches are honeymoon affairs. When once that's over, there's an end of everything.

SYLVESTER.

But is it over?

VICTORIA.

Everybody's talking. Cazenove is bored to death.

SYLVESTER.

I don't think his wife is.

VICTORIA.

Ah, that will come in time; and when it does, I mean to take Margery in hand. She is neglected shamefully. _She_ hasn't discovered it yet, but all her friends have.

SYLVESTER.

They're generally first in the field.

VICTORIA.

If a husband ignores his wife, the wife is ent.i.tled to ignore her husband. What would a man do under the same circ.u.mstances?

SYLVESTER.

Is not the question rather, what a man _ought_ to do?

VICTORIA.

That is Utopian. We must take the world as we find it.