GETRUDE. You're quite right. That's over. Now, then, I'm going to
gabble for five minutes gaily. [Settling herself comfortably in an
armchair.] What jolly flowers you've got there! What have you been
doing with yourself? Amos took me to the Caffe Quadri yesterday to late
breakfast, to cheer me up. Oh, I've something to say to you! At the
Caffe, at the next table to ours, there were three English people--two
men and a girl--home from India, I gathered. One of the men was
looking out of the window, quizzing the folks walking in the Piazza,
and suddenly he caught sight of your husband. [AGNES' hands pause in
their work.] "I do believe that's Lucas Cleeve," he said. And then the
girl had a peep, and said "Certainly it is." And the man said: "I must
find out where he's stopping; If Minerva is with him, you must call."
"Who's Minerva?" said the second man. "Minerva is Mrs. Lucas Cleeve,"
the girl said, "it's a pet name--he married a chum of mine, a daughter
of Sir John Steyning's a year or so after I went out." Excuse me, dear.
Do these people really know you and your husband, or were they talking
nonsense?

[AGNES takes the vase of faded flowers, goes onto the balcony, and
empties the contents of the vase into the canal. Then she stands by the
window, her back towards GERTRUDE.]

AGNES. No, they evidently know Mr. Cleeve.

GERTRUDE. Your husband never calls you by that pet-name of yours. Why
is it you haven't told me you're a daughter of Admiral Steyning's?

AGNES. Mrs Thorpe--

GERTRUDE. [Warmly.] Oh, I must say what I mean! I have often pulled