DOLLY. Perfectly.

VALENTINE. Well, it's all over. I've been refused---scorned. I'm
only here on sufferance. You understand: it's all over. Your sister is
in no sense entertaining my addresses, or condescending to interest
herself in me in any way. (Gloria, satisfied, turns back contemptuously
to the window.) Is that clear?

DOLLY. Serve you right. You were in too great a hurry.

PHILIP (patting him on the shoulder). Never mind: you'd never have
been able to call your soul your own if she'd married you. You can now
begin a new chapter in your life.

DOLLY. Chapter seventeen or thereabouts, I should imagine.

VALENTINE (much put out by this pleasantry). No: don't say things
like that. That's just the sort of thoughtless remark that makes a lot
of mischief.

DOLLY. Oh, indeed. Hmhm!

PHILIP. Ahah! (He goes to the hearth and plants himself there in
his best head-of-the-family attitude.)

McComas, looking very serious, comes in quickly with Mrs. Clandon,
whose first anxiety is about Gloria. She looks round to see where she
is, and is going to join her at the window when Gloria comes down to
meet her with a marked air of trust and affection. Finally, Mrs.