Emma. [_Irritably._] Don't tuck your head under your arm in that way! [_She puts the broken bust on the table._] Emma, there have been grave faults on both sides. Yours I will endeavour to overlook.
Ah, now you are your dear old self again.
But, Emma, you are occasionally an irritating woman to live with.
You are the first who has ever said that.
On conditions that she doesn't see Paulover's face again for five years.
Oh, there will be no difficulty about that. [_Reginald and Dinah enter, she is dressed for flight._]
My father-in-law! [_They retreat hastily._]
[_Madly._] Who let you out? Who let you in? [_He goes out after them--Mrs. Rankling follows._]
[_As she goes out._] Archibald! continue your dear old self. [_Queckett enters by another door, Miss Dyott following him--both out of breath. They look at each other, recovering themselves?_]
I understand that you wish to speak to me, Caroline.
Oh, you--you paltry little man! You mean ungrateful little creature! You laced-up little heap of pompous pauperism! You--you--I cannot adequately describe you. Wretch!
[_Putting on his gloves again._] Have you finished with me, Caroline? Finished with you! I shall never have finished with you! Never till you leave me!
You don't think I expect you to leave me anything else. Oh, what could I have seen in you!
I take it, Caroline, that, in the language of the hunting field, you "scented" a gentleman.
Scented a gentleman! In the few weeks of our marriage I have scented you and cigaretted you, wined you and liqueured you, tailored and hatted and booted you. I have darned and mended and washed you--gruelled you with a cold, tinctured you with a toothache, and linimented you with the gout. [_Fiercely._] Have I not? Have I not?
You certainly have had exceptional privileges. Familiarity appears to have fulfilled its usual functions and bred--
The most utter contempt. Have I not paid your debts?
For the sake of having the vestal seclusion of Volumnia College telegraphically denominated as Bachelor Diggings!
Any collection of young ladies may be so described. The description is happy but harmless. As for the subsequent conflagration--
I say with all sincerity that from the moment the fire broke out till I escaped no one regretted it more than myself. _That_ was Tyler!