Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 5).djvu/35

 uncle have not been getting up this little comedy of a quarrel, merely to show Kitty and me what fools we look when we are fighting! Why! It was better than any play I ever saw!


 * It's all been in sober earnest, I assure you.

( recovers slightly. Looks first at, then at , and lastly at .)

(slowly): You call—all this—a little comedy? (Recovers more, but very gradually.)


 * Why, yes! Don't attempt to say it wasn't—(slyly)—especially after all you told me this morning about how cleverly you manage my uncle. Just let me see you glance at him in the way you said you could. (Whispering.)

( further recovers herself. Her expression softens. After a minute or two she smiles meaningly to herself.)


 * Now, Uncle Will, do finish off by pretending to make up the quarrel! There's my aunt waiting with her smile already!

(stupidly): Pretend to make up the quarrel?

(suddenly radiant): Why, yes! You silly old goose! Don't you see the fun? Pretend to give me a kiss at once. (They kiss.)

and (aside): That's a comfort. (They walk up stage.)

(aside to ): I can see you are dying to make amends for all you have just said!


 * I don't deny that I may be!


 * Then tell me what it was you were concocting with Jem! There's an old dear!


 * Since we are all good friends again I don't mind telling you Jem was confiding his little troubles to me


 * But you had already found them out!


 * And also that there was a possibility of a separation!


 * Silly children!


 * Had you not at once flown into a rage, I should have broken my promise to Jem, and have told you all!


 * That was quite right of you. (They walk up stage, amicably, arm-in-arm. and  walk to .)


 * You will find me ready dressed to start for eight o'clock matins, to-morrow morning, Kitty!


 * Oh! That's very much too much to ask of you!


 * Not at all! Providing you won't insist on going out with the guns.


 * I shall only wish what you wish from this day forward, dearest Jem!


 * That's all right! (They kiss, laughingly, as the curtain descends. and  look on smiling.)