for me to put down my foot at last. (Exit, talking and gesticulating angrily.)
Jem (much embarrassed): Kitty!
Kitty: Jem!
Jem: This is painful! In fact, it's worse than wicked—it's vulgar!
Kitty (gently). It's simply dreadful to see two people behaving in such a way.
Jem: And at their time of life!
Kitty: That's the awful part of it!
Jem: I wonder how they can do it!
Kitty (archly, yet on the verge of tears): So do I!
Enter Porter: Her ladyship has bidden me to put her trunks together, ma'am.
Kitty: Wait a minute, Porter. Perhaps I can persuade her ladyship to stay. (Voices from without.)
Lady Flo: I wish to go this instant, and alone.
Sir W.: By all means, and to-morrow my lawyer shall wait on you.
Lady Flo: And mine on you. (After a moment, they enter.)
Lady Flo: And it has come to this, William!
Sir W.: By mutual consent. This is the happiest day of my life. I breathe again. I know now I have never breathed until this moment since the day I married you!
Lady Flo: This is beyond everything! (Violently excited.)
Jem (whispers aside to Kitty, unobserved; play on both sides; then, after evidently agreeing on a plan, pretend to treat the matter as a joke; advancing): Bravo! Bravissimo! Capital! (Roars with forced laughter.)
Kitty: "Splendid! I never saw anything so well done!"
Sir W.: "It's no laughing matter!"
Kitty: Splendid! I never saw anything so well done! (Joins her husband in laughter.)
Sir W.: It's no laughing matter!
Jem: Ha ha! I daresay not.
Kitty: Irving and Ellen Terry are not in it! (Continues laughing.)
Lady Flo: What can you mean?
Jem: Oh, don't pretend that you and my
