Theodore! What fresh iniquity--?

COLONEL.

Caroline, I am going to be married.

[_Blows his nose vigorously._

LADY WARGRAVE [_astounded_].

Married!

COLONEL.

To-morrow.

LADY WARGRAVE.

To whom, pray?

COLONEL.

Miss Bethune.

LADY WARGRAVE.

Give me my smelling salts.

COLONEL [_gives her them_].

Enid! Pretty name, isn't it? Enid!

[_Smiling to himself._

LADY WARGRAVE.

No fool like an old fool!

COLONEL.

Fifty-six.

LADY WARGRAVE.

Eight.

COLONEL.

But don't tell Enid, will you?

LADY WARGRAVE.

There are so many things I mustn't tell Enid!

COLONEL.

No, Caroline; I've made a clean breast of it.

LADY WARGRAVE.

_Quite_ a clean breast of it?

COLONEL.

Everything in the world is comparative.

LADY WARGRAVE.

Then, Miss Bethune has renounced her opinions?

COLONEL.

Oh, no; she's too much of a woman for that.

LADY WARGRAVE.

How can she reconcile them with your enormities?

COLONEL.

My peccadilloes? Oh, she doesn't believe them--or she pretends she doesn't--which is the same thing. She says we men exaggerate so; and as for the women, you simply can't believe a word they say!

[_Chuckles in his old style._

LADY WARGRAVE.

At any rate, she means to marry you?

COLONEL.

Upon the whole, she thinks I have been rather badly used.

[_Chuckles again._

LADY WARGRAVE.

To marry! after your experience!

COLONEL.