class="smcap">Mrs. Phillimore and moves away.

Grace. I hope you'll send an announcement to the Dudleys.

Mrs. Phillimore. [Prepared to make the best of things, plaintively reads.] "Mr. Philip Phillimore and Mrs. Cynthia Dean Karslake announce their marriage, May twentieth, at three o'clock, Nineteen A, Washington Square, New York." [Replacing the paper on Thomas's salver.] It sounds very nice.

[Thomas returns the paper to Miss Heneage.

Miss Heneage. In my opinion it barely escapes sounding nasty. However, it is correct. The only remaining question is—to whom the announcement should not be sent. [Thomas goes out.] I consider an announcement of the wedding of two divorced persons to be in the nature of an intimate communication. It not only announces the wedding—it also announces the divorce. [Returning to her teacup.] The person I shall ask counsel of is cousin William Sudley. He promised to drop in this afternoon.

Grace. Oh! We shall hear all about Cairo.

Mrs. Phillimore. William is judicious. [Thomas returns.

Miss Heneage. [With finality.] Cousin William will disapprove of the match unless a winter in Cairo has altered his moral tone.

Thomas. [Announcing.] Mr. Sudley.

Mrs. Phillimore and Miss Heneage. [Rising and greeting Sudley; a little tremulously.] My dear William!

[Thomas withdraws.

Sudley. [Shakes hands with Mrs. Phillimore, soberly glad to see them.] How d'ye do, Mary? [Greeting Miss Heneage.] A very warm May you're having, Sarah.

Grace. [Coming forward to welcome him.] Dear Cousin William!

Miss Heneage. Wasn't it warm in Cairo when you left?

Sudley. [Sitting down.] We left Cairo six weeks ago, Grace, so I've had no news since you wrote in February that Philip was engaged. [After a pause.] I need not to say I consider Philip's engagement excessively regrettable. He is a judge upon the Supreme Court bench with a divorced wife—and such a divorced wife!

Grace. Oh, but Philip has succeeded in keeping everything as quiet as possible.

Sudley. [Acidly.] No, my dear! He has not succeeded in keeping his former wife as quiet as possible. We had not been in Cairo a week when who should turn up but Vida Phillimore. She went everywhere and did everything no woman should!

Grace. [With unfeigned interest.] Oh, what did she do?

Sudley. She "did" Cleopatra at the tableaux at Lord Errington's! She "did" Cleopatra, and she did it robed only in some diaphanous material of a nature so transparent that—in fact she appeared to be draped in moonshine. [Miss Heneage indicates the presence of Grace and rises.] That was only the beginning. As soon as she heard of Philip's engagement, she gave a dinner in honour of it! Only divorcées were asked! And she had a dummy—yes, my dear, a dummy!—at the head of the table. He stood for Philip—that is he sat for Philip!

[Rising and moving to the table.

Miss Heneage. [Irritated and disgusted.] Ah!

Mrs. Phillimore. [With dismay and pain.] Dear me!

Miss Heneage. [Confident of the value of her opinion.] I disapprove of Mrs. Phillimore.

Sudley. [Taking a cigarette.] Of course you do, but has Philip taken to Egyptian cigarettes in order to celebrate my winter at Cairo?

Grace. Those are Cynthia's.

Sudley. [Thinking that no one is worth knowing whom he does not know.] Who is "Cynthia?"

Grace. Mrs. Karslake—She's staying here, Cousin William. She'll be down in a minute.

Sudley. [Shocked.] You don't mean to tell me—?—!

Miss Heneage. Yes, William, Cynthia is Mrs. Karslake—Mrs. Karslake has no New York house. I disliked the publicity of a hotel in the circumstances, and, accordingly, when she became engaged to Philip, I invited her here.

Sudley. [Suspicious and distrustful.] And may I ask who Mrs. Karslake is?

Miss Heneage. [With confidence.] She was a Deane.

Sudley. [Walking about the room, sorry to be obliged to concede good birth to any but his own blood.] Oh, oh—well, the Deanes are extremely nice people. [Approaching the table.] Was her father J. William Deane?

Miss Heneage. [Nodding, still more secure.] Yes.

Sudley. [Giving in with difficulty.] The family is an old one. J. William Deane's daughter? Surely he left a very considerable—

Miss Heneage. Oh, fifteen or twenty millions.

Sudley. [Determined not to be dazzled.] If I remember rightly she was brought up abroad.

Miss Heneage. In France and England—and I fancy brought up with a very gay set in very gay places. In fact she is what is called a "sporty" woman.

Sudley. [Always ready to think the worst.] We might put up with that. But you don't mean to tell me Philip has the—the—assurance to marry a woman who has been divorced by—

Miss Heneage. Not at all. Cynthia Karslake divorced her husband.

Sudley. [Gloomily, since he has less fault to find than he expected.] She divorced him! Ah!

[He seeks the consolation of his tea.

Miss Heneage. The suit went by default. And, my dear William, there are many palliating circumstances. Cynthia was married to Karslake only seven months. There are no— [Glancing at Grace] no hostages to Fortune! Ahem!

Sudley. [Still unwilling to be pleased.] Ah! What sort of a young woman is she?

Grace. [With the superiority of one who is not too popular.] Men admire her.

Miss Heneage. She's not conventional.

Mrs.