wipe up the floor. She passes near the door where Mrs. Roberts is
standing, and Mrs. Roberts appeals to her in the anxiety which her
failure to detect the object of her search has awakened: "Oh, I was
just looking for my husband. He was to meet me here at ten minutes
past three; but there don't seem to _be _any gentlemen."

The Chorewoman: "Mem?"

Mrs. Roberts: "I was just looking for my husband. He was to meet me
here at ten minutes past three; but there don't seem to be any
gentlemen. You haven't happened to notice--"

The Chorewoman: "There's a gentleman over there beyant, readin',
that's just come in. He seemed to be lukun' for somebody." She applies
the mop to the floor close to Mrs. Roberts's skirts.

Mrs. Roberts, bending to the right and to the left, and then, by
standing on tiptoe, catching sight of a hat round a pillar: "Then it's
Mr. Roberts, of course. I'll just go right over to him. Thank you ever
so much. Don't disturb yourself!" She picks her way round the area of
damp left by the mop, and approaches the hat from behind. "It _is_
you, Edward! What a horrid idea I had! I was just going to touch your
hat from behind, for fun; but I kept myself from it in time."

Roberts, looking up with a dazed air from the magazine in his hand:
"Why, what would have happened?"

Mrs. Roberts: "Oh, you know it mightn't have been _you_."

Roberts: "But it _was_ I."