MABEL (returning with promptitude). Did you call me, Joanna?

JOANNA (guardedly). I insist on an explanation. (With creditable
hauteur.) What were you doing in the garden, Mabel?

MABEL (who has not been so quiet all day). I was looking for something
I have lost.

PURDIE (hope springing eternal). Anything important?

MABEL. I used to fancy it, Jack. It is my husband's love. You don't
happen to have picked it up, Joanna? If so and you don't set great
store by it I should like it back--the pieces, I mean.

(MR. PURDIE is about lo reply to this, when JOANNA rather wisely fills
the breach.)

JOANNA. Mabel, I--I will not be talked to in that way. To imply that
I--that your husband--oh, shame!

PURDIE (finely). I must say, Mabel, that I am a little disappointed in
you. I certainly understood that you had gone upstairs to put on your
boots.

MABEL. Poor old Jack. (She muses.) A woman like that!

JOANNA (changing her comment in the moment of utterance), I forgive
you Mabel, you will be sorry for this afterwards.