[He sits down with a sigh and obeys.]

VENABLES. Your husband has been writing the speech here, and by his own wish he read it to me three days ago. The occasion is to be an important one; and, well, there are a dozen young men in the party at present, all capable of filling a certain small ministerial post. [He looks longingly at the mower, but it sends no message to his aid.] And as he is one of them I was anxious that he should show in this speech of what he is capable.

MAGGIE. And hasn't he?

[Not for the first time MR. VENABLES wishes that he was not in politics.]

VENABLES. I am afraid he has.

COMTESSE. What is wrong with the speech, Charles?

VENABLES. Nothing--and he can still deliver it. It is a powerful, well-thought-out piece of work, such as only a very able man could produce. But it has no SPECIAL QUALITY of its own--none of the little touches that used to make an old stager like myself want to pat Shand on the shoulder. [The COMTESSE's mouth twitches, but MAGGIE declines to notice it.] He pounds on manfully enough, but, if I may say so, with a wooden leg. It is as good, I dare say, as the rest of them could have done; but they start with such inherited advantages, Mrs. Shand, that he had to do better.

MAGGIE. Yes, I can understand that.

VENABLES. I am sorry, Mrs. Shand, for he interested me. His career has set me wondering whether if _I_ had begun as a railway porter I might not still be calling out, 'By your leave.'

[MAGGIE thinks it probable but not important]

MAGGIE. Mr. Venables, now that I think of it, surely John wrote to me that you were dissatisfied with his first speech, and that he was writing another.

[The COMTESSE's eyes open very wide indeed.]

VENABLES. I have heard nothing of that, Mrs. Shand. [He shakes his wise head.] And in any case, I am afraid--[He still hears the wooden leg.]

MAGGIE. But you said yourself that his second thoughts were sometimes such an improvement on the first.

[The COMTESSE comes to the help of the baggage.]

COMTESSE. I remember you saying that, Charles.

VENABLES. Yes, that has struck me. [Politely] Well, if he has anything to show me--In the meantime--

[He regains the lawn, like one glad to escape attendance at JOHN'S obsequies. The COMTESSE is brought back to speech by the sound of the mower--nothing wooden in it.]

COMTESSE. What are you up to now, Miss Pin? You know as well as I do that there is no such speech.

[MAGGIE's mouth tightens.]

MAGGIE. I do not.

COMTESSE. It is a duel, is it, my friend?

[The COMTESSE rings the bell and MAGGIE's guilty mind is agitated.]

MAGGIE. What are you ringing for?

COMTESSE. As the challenged one, Miss Pin, I have the choice of weapons.

I am going to send for your husband to ask him if he has written such a speech. After which, I suppose, you will ask me to leave you while you and he write it together.

[MAGGIE wrings her hands.]

MAGGIE. You are wrong, Comtesse; but please don't do that.

COMTESSE. You but make me more curious, and my doctor says that I must be told everything. [The COMTESSE a.s.sumes the pose of her s.e.x in melodrama.] Put your cards on the table, Maggie Shand, or--[She indicates that she always pinks her man. MAGGIE dolefully produces a roll of paper from her bag.] What precisely is that?

[The reply is little more than a squeak.]

MAGGIE. John's speech.

COMTESSE. You have written it yourself!

[MAGGIE is naturally indignant.]

MAGGIE. It's typed.

COMTESSE. You guessed that the speech he wrote unaided would not satisfy, and you prepared this to take its place!

MAGGIE. Not at all, Comtesse. It is the draft of his speech that he left at home. That's all.

COMTESSE. With a few trivial alterations by yourself, I swear. Can you deny it?

[No wonder that MAGGIE is outraged. She replaces JOHN's speech in the bag with becoming hauteur.]

MAGGIE. Comtesse, these insinuations are unworthy of you. May I ask where is my husband?

[The COMTESSE drops her a curtsey.]

COMTESSE. I believe your Haughtiness may find him in the Dutch garden.

Oh, I see through you. You are not to show him your speech. But you are to get him to write another one, and somehow all your additions will be in it. Think not, creature, that you can deceive one so old in iniquity as the Comtesse de la Briere.

[There can be but one reply from a good wife to such a charge, and at once the COMTESSE is left alone with her shame. Anon a footman appears.

You know how they come and go.]

FOOTMAN. You rang, my lady?

COMTESSE. Did I? Ah, yes, but why? [He is but lately from the ploughshare and cannot help her. In this quandary her eyes alight upon the bag. She is unfortunately too abandoned to feel her shame; she still thinks that she has the choice of weapons. She takes the speech from the bag and bestows it on her servitor.] Take this to Mr. Venables, please, and say it is from Mr. Shand. [THOMAS--but in the end we shall probably call him JOHN--departs with the dangerous papers; and when MAGGIE returns she finds that the COMTESSE is once more engaged in her interrupted game of Patience.] You did not find him?

[All the bravery has dropped from MAGGIE's face.]

MAGGIE. I didn't see him, but I heard him. SHE is with him. I think they are coming here.

[The COMTESSE is suddenly kind again.]

COMTESSE. Sybil? Shall I get rid of her?

MAGGIE. No, I want her to be here, too. Now I shall know.

[The COMTESSE twists the little thing round.]