HILDEGARDE. Of course I shall have to leave home.

TRANTO. Leave home!

HILDEGARDE. Yes, and live by myself in rooms.

TRANTO. But why?

HILDEGARDE. I couldn't possibly stay here. Think how it would compromise
father with the War Cabinet if I did. It might ruin him. And as accounts
are everything in modern warfare, it might lose the war. But that's
nothing--it's mamma I'm thinking of. Do you forget that Sampson
Straight, being a young woman of advanced ideas, has written about
everything, _everything_--yes, and several other subjects besides? For
instance, here's the article I was revising when you came in. (_Shows
the title-page to_ Tranto.)

TRANTO. Splendid! You're the most courageous creature I ever met.

HILDEGARDE. Possibly. But not courageous enough to offer to kiss mamma
when I went to bed on the night that _that (indicating the article_) had
appeared in print under my own name. You don't know mamma.

TRANTO. But dash it! You could eat your mother!

HILDEGARDE. Pardon me. The contrary is the fact. Mamma could eat me.

TRANTO. But you're the illustrious Sampson Straight. There's more
intelligence in your little finger than there is in your mother's whole
body. See how you write.