BROOKE TWOMBLEY.
About my pecuniary position, don"t you know. You"ll hardly credit it, but I haven"t the least idea what pa intends to do for me.
IMOGEN.
But it doesn"t matter about that, so that you are deeply attached to each other.
LADY EUPHEMIA VIBART.
Oh, Imogen, that"s _too_ ridiculous!
BROOKE TWOMBLEY.
Quite absurd--what!
IMOGEN.
Besides, if you want money you can work.
BROOKE TWOMBLEY.
Oh, it"s no good everybody working. It"s this stupid all-round desire to work that throws so many men out of employment. I"ll look for Valentine.
[IMOGEN gives him her note.] He"s sure to be about. We"re going to shoot over Claigrossie Moor this morning. [He goes out.]
LADY EUPHEMIA VIBART.
So you"ve made up your mind at last?
IMOGEN.
No; other people have made it up for me.
LADY EUPHEMIA VIBART.
Mamma?
IMOGEN.
Yes, Aunt Dora is the princ.i.p.al person who has rendered my life a burden to me.
LADY EUPHEMIA VIBART.
Oh, Imogen!
IMOGEN.
It"s true. Every hour of the livelong day Aunt Dora has goaded me on to this desirable, detestable match; even at night she has stalked into my room with a lighted candle, startling me out of my beauty sleep, to tell me she will never rest till I am Lady Macphail.
LADY EUPHEMIA VIBART.
Imogen, it"s _too_ kind of mamma to take this interest in you.
IMOGEN.
Interest! It"s torture. And at last she threatened that if I married anybody else she would expire in great pain and appear to me constantly, a ghost, in her night-gown. Well, you"ve seen Aunt Dora in her night-gown--you can guess my feelings.
LADY EUPHEMIA VIBART.
And that decided you.
IMOGEN.
I went to mamma and asked her advice.
LADY EUPHEMIA VIBART.
I guess what that was.
IMOGEN.
Mamma"s expression was that she"d give the heels off her best shoes to see me provided for. And so, late last night, while my maid Phipps was washing my head, I gasped out a soapy sort of yes.
[The DOWAGER enters.]
DOWAGER.
Where is Imogen?
LADY EUPHEMIA VIBART.
Here, mamma.
DOWAGER.
[Embracing IMOGEN.] My favorite niece! I have just learned your decision over the breakfast-table. I was eating cold grouse at the moment; I thought I should have choked.
IMOGEN.
I hope you are satisfied, aunt.
DOWAGER.
Thoroughly. I feel now that I shall die, a great many years hence, a contented woman. Effie.
LADY EUPHEMIA VIBART.
Yes, mamma?
DOWAGER.