Act III - Page 2

PURDIE. Do give me a chance, Mabel. If the dog-like devotion of a
lifetime . . .

(JOANNA comes through the curtains so inopportunely that for the
moment he is almost pettish.)

May I say, this is just a little too much, Joanna!

JOANNA (unconscious as they of her return to her dinner gown). So,
sweet husband, your soul is still walking alone, is it?

MABEL (who hates coarseness of any kind). How can you sneak about in
this way, Joanna? Have you no pride?

JOANNA (dashing away a tear). Please to address me as Mrs. Purdie,
madam. (She sees LOB.) Who is this man?

PURDIE. We don't know; and there is no waking him. You can try, if you
like.

(Failing to rouse him JOANNA makes a third at table. They are all a
little inconsequential, as if there were still some moon-shine in
their hair.)

JOANNA. You were saying something about the devotion of a lifetime;
please go on.

PURDIE (diffidently). I don't like to before you, Joanna.

JOANNA (becoming coarse again). Oh, don't mind me.

PURDIE (looking like a note of interrogation). I should certainly like
to say it.

MABEL (loftily). And I shall be proud to hear it.

PURDIE. I should have liked to spare you this, Joanna; you wouldn't
put your hands over your ears?

JOANNA (alas). No, sir.

MABEL. Fie, Joanna. Surely a wife's natural delicacy . . .

PURDIE (severely). As you take it in that spirit, Joanna, I can
proceed with a clear conscience. If the dog-like devotion of a
lifetime--(He reels a little, staring at LOB, over whose face the
leer has been wandering like an insect.)

MABEL. Did he move?

PURDIE. It isn't that. I am feeling--very funny. Did one of you tap me
just now on the forehead?

(Their hands also have gone to their foreheads.)

MABEL. I think I have been in this room before.

PURDIE (flinching). There is something coming rushing back to me.

MABEL. I seem to know that coffee set. If I do, the lid of the milk
jug is chipped. It is!

JOANNA. I can't remember this man's name; but I am sure it begins with L.

MABEL. Lob.

PURDIE. Lob.

JOANNA. Lob.

PURDIE. Mabel, your dress?

MABEL (beholding it). How on earth . . . ?

JOANNA. My dress! (To PURDIE.) You were in knickerbockers in the
wood.

PURDIE. And so I am now. (He sees he is not.) Where did I change? The
wood! Let me think. The wood . . . the wood, certainly. But the
wood wasn't the wood.

JOANNA (revolving like one in pursuit). My head is going round.

MABEL. Lob's wood! I remember it all. We were here. We did go.

PURDIE. So we did. But how could . . . ? where was . . . ?

JOANNE. And who