SIR TRISTRAM.
All right; fire still burning. [_Blowing out the candle._] I shall doze here till daybreak. What a night! I never thought there was so much thunder in these small country places.
[_GEORGIANA, looking pale and agitated, and wearing a dressing-gown, enters quickly, carrying an umbrella and a lighted candle._
GEORGIANA.
Which is the nearer way to the stable? I must satisfy myself--I must--I must! [_Going to the door._]
SIR TRISTRAM.
[_Rising suddenly._] Hullo!
GEORGIANA.
[_Shrieks with fright._] Ah!
SIR TRISTRAM.
Hush!
GEORGIANA.
[_Holding out her umbrella._] Stand where you are or I"ll fire!
[_Recognizing SIR TRISTRAM._] Tris!
SIR TRISTRAM.
Why, George!
GEORGIANA.
Oh, Tris, I"ve been dreaming! [_Falling helplessly against Sir Tristram, who deposits her in a chair._] Oh! oh! oh! Don"t look at me!
I"m overtrained. I shall be on my legs again in a minute.
[_She opens her umbrella and hides herself behind it, sobbing violently._
SIR TRISTRAM.
[_Standing over the umbrella in great concern._] My goodness! George, whatever shall I do? Shall I trot you up and down outside?
GEORGIANA.
Be quiet! [_Sobbing._] What are you fooling about here for? Why can"t you lie quietly in your cot?
SIR TRISTRAM.
Confound that cot! Why, it wouldn"t hold my photograph. Where are you going?
GEORGIANA.
Into the stable to sit with Dandy. The thunder"s awful in my room; when it gets tired it seems to sit down on my particular bit of roof.
I did doze once, and then I had a frightful dream. I dreamt that Dandy had sold himself to a circus, and that they were hooting him because he had lost his tail. There"s an omen!
SIR TRISTRAM.
Don"t, don"t--be a man, George, be a man!
GEORGIANA.
[_Shutting her umbrella._] I know I"m dreadfully effeminate.
There--Tidd"s himself again!
SIR TRISTRAM.
Bravo!
GEORGIANA.
Ah, Tris--don"t think me soft, old man. I"m a lonely, unlucky woman, and the tail end of this horse is all that"s left me in the world to love and to cling to!
SIR TRISTRAM.
No, by Jove! I"m not such a mean cur as that! Swop halves and take his head, George, my boy.
GEORGIANA.
Not I! I"m like a doating mother to my share of Dandy, and it"s all the dearer because it"s an invalid. I"m off.
SIR TRISTRAM.
Come along! [_Turning towards the window, she following him, he suddenly stops and looks at her, and seizes her hand._] George, I never guessed that you were so tender-hearted.
GEORGIANA.
Well, I"m not.
SIR TRISTRAM.
And you"ve robbed me to-night of an old friend--a pal.
GEORGIANA.
I--what d"ye mean?
SIR TRISTRAM.
I mean that I seem to have dropped the acquaintance of George Tidd, Esquire, forever.