Plays: Lady Frederick, The Explorer, A Man of Honor Part 84

d.i.c.k.

By the way, you don't want to dance with me, do you?

MRS. CROWLEY.

Certainly not. You dance abominably.

d.i.c.k.

It's charming of you to say so. It puts me at my ease at once.

MRS. CROWLEY.

Come and sit on the sofa and talk seriously.

d.i.c.k.

Ah, you want to flirt with me, Mrs. Crowley.

MRS. CROWLEY.

Good heavens, what on earth makes you think that?

d.i.c.k.

It's what a woman always means when she asks you to talk sensibly.

MRS. CROWLEY.

I can't bear a man who thinks women are in love with him.

d.i.c.k.

Bless you, I don't think that. I only think they want to marry me.

MRS. CROWLEY.

That's equally detestable.

d.i.c.k.

Not at all. However old, ugly, and generally undesirable a man is, he'll find a heap of charming girls who are willing to marry him.

Marriage is still the only decent means of livelihood for a really nice girl.

MRS. CROWLEY.

But, my dear friend, if a woman really makes up her mind to marry a man, nothing on earth can save him.

d.i.c.k.

Don't say that, you terrify me.

MRS. CROWLEY.

You need not be in the least alarmed, because I shall refuse you.

d.i.c.k.

Thanks, awfully. But all the same I don't think I'll risk a proposal.

MRS. CROWLEY.

My dear Mr. Lomas, your only safety is in immediate flight.

d.i.c.k.

Why?

MRS. CROWLEY.

It must be obvious to the meanest intelligence that you've been on the verge of proposing to me for the last month.

d.i.c.k.

Oh, I a.s.sure you, you're quite mistaken.

MRS. CROWLEY.

Then I shan't come to the play with you to-morrow?

d.i.c.k.

But I've taken the seats, and I've ordered an exquisite dinner at the Carlton.

MRS. CROWLEY.

What have you ordered?

d.i.c.k.

Potage Bisque... [_She makes a little face._]

Sole Normande... [_She shrugs her shoulders._]

Wild Duck.

MRS. CROWLEY.

With an orange salad?

d.i.c.k.