COADE (getting the footstool for her). You are all I need.
MRS. COADE. Yes; but I am not so sure as I used to be that it is a great compliment.
JOANNA. Coady, behave.
(There is a knock on the window.)
PURDIE (peeping). Mrs. Dearth! (His spirits revive.) She is alone. Who would have expected that of _her_?
MABEL. She is a wild one, Jack, but I sometimes thought rather a dear; I do hope she has got off cheaply.
(ALICE comes to them in her dinner gown.)
PURDIE (the irrepressible). Pleased to see you, stranger.
ALICE (prepared for ejection.) I was afraid such an unceremonious entry might startle you.
PURDIE. Not a bit.
ALICE (defiant). I usually enter a house by the front door.
PURDIE. I have heard that such is the swagger way.
ALICE (simpering). So stupid of me. I lost myself in the wood ... and ...
JOANNA (genially). Of course you did. But never mind that; do tell us your name.
LADY CAROLINE (emerging again). Yes, yes, your name.
ALICE. Of course, I am the Honourable Mrs. Finch-Fallowe.
LADY CAROLINE. Of course, of course!
PURDIE. I hope Mr. Finch-Fallowe is very well? We don"t know him personally, but may we have the pleasure of seeing him bob up presently?
ALICE. No, I am not sure where he is.
LADY CAROLINE (with point). I wonder if the dear clever police know?
ALICE (imprudently). No, they don"t.
(It is a very secondary matter to her. This woman of calamitous fires hears and sees her tormentors chiefly as the probable owner, of the cake which is standing on that tray.) So awkward, I gave my sandwiches to a poor girl and her father whom I met in the wood, and now ... isn"t it a nuisance--I am quite hungry. (So far with a mincing bravado.) May I?
(Without waiting for consent she falls to upon the cake, looking over it like one ready to fight them for it.)
PURDIE (sobered again). Poor soul.
LADY CAROLINE. We are so anxious to know whether you met a friend of ours in the wood--a Mr. Dearth. Perhaps you know him, too?
ALICE. Dearth? I don"t know any Dearth.
MRS. COADE. Oh, dear what a wood!
LADY CAROLINE. He is quite a front door sort of man; knocks and rings, you know.
PURDIE. Don"t worry her.
ALICE (gnawing). I meet so many; you see I go out a great deal. I have visiting-cards--printed ones.
LADY CAROLINE. How very distingue. Perhaps Mr. Dearth has painted your portrait; he is an artist.
ALICE. Very likely; they all want to paint me. I daresay that is the man to whom I gave my sandwiches.
MRS. COADE. But I thought you said he had a daughter?
ALICE. Such a pretty girl; I gave her half a crown.
COADE. A daughter? That can"t be Dearth.
PURDIE (darkly). Don"t be too sure. Was the man you speak of a rather chop-fallen, gone-to-seed sort of person.
ALICE. No, I thought him such a jolly, attractive man.
COADE. Dearth jolly, attractive! Oh no. Did he say anything about his wife?
LADY CAROLINE, Yes, do try to remember if he mentioned her.
ALICE (snapping). No, he didn"t.
PURDIE. He was far from jolly in her time.
ALICE (with an archness for which the cake is responsible). Perhaps that was the lady"s fault.
(The last of the adventurers draws nigh, carolling a French song as he comes.)
COADE. Dearth"s voice. He sounds quite merry!
JOANNA (protecting). Alice, you poor thing.
PURDIE. This is going to be horrible.
(A clear-eyed man of l.u.s.ty gait comes in.)
DEARTH. I am sorry to bounce in on you in this way, but really I have an excuse. I am a painter of sorts, and...
(He sees he has brought some strange discomfort here.)
MRS. COADE. I must say, Mr. Dearth, I am delighted to see you looking so well. Like a new man, isn"t he?