Des. No, not angry; but a district visitor should learn to eschew melodrama. Visit the poor, by all means, and give them tea and barley-water, but don't do it as if you were administering a bowl of deadly nightshade. It upsets them. Then when you nurse sick people, and find them not as well as could be expected, why go into hysterics?
Mar. Why not?
Des. Because it's too jumpy for a sick-room.
Mar. How strange! Oh, Master! Master!—how shall I express the all-absorbing gratitude that— [About to throw herself at his feet.
Des. Now! [Warningly.
Mar. Yes, I know, dear—it shan't occur again. [He is seated—she sits on the ground by him.] Shall I tell you one of poor Mad Margaret's odd thoughts? Well, then, when I am lying awake at night, and the pale moonlight streams through the latticed casement, strange fancies crowd upon my poor mad brain, and I sometimes think that if we could hit upon some word for you to use whenever I am about to relapse—some word that teems with hidden meaning—like "Basingstoke"—it might recall me to my saner self. For, after all, I am only Mad Margaret! Daft Meg! Poor Meg! He! he! he!
Des. Poor child, she wanders! But soft—some one comes—Margaret pray recollect yourself—Basingstoke, I beg! Margaret, if you don't Basingstoke at once, I shall be seriously angry.
Mar. [Recovering herself.] Basingstoke it is!
Des. Then make it so.
Enter Robin. He starts on seeing them
Rob. Despard! And his young wife! This visit is unexpected.
Mar. Shall I fly at him? Shall I tear him limb from limb? Shall I rend him asunder? Say but the word and—
Des. Basingstoke!
Mar. [Suddenly demure.] Basingstoke it is!
Des. [Aside.] Then make it so. [Aloud.] My brother—I call you brother still, despite your horrible profligacy—we have come to urge you to abandon the evil courses to which you have committed yourself, and at any cost to become a pure and blameless ratepayer.
