COMTESSE. You have written it yourself!

[MAGGIE is naturally indignant.]

MAGGIE. It's typed.

COMTESSE. You guessed that the speech he wrote unaided would not
satisfy, and you prepared this to take its place!

MAGGIE. Not at all, Comtesse. It is the draft of his speech that he
left at home. That's all.

COMTESSE. With a few trivial alterations by yourself, I swear. Can
you deny it?

[No wonder that MAGGIE is outraged. She replaces JOHN's speech in the
bag with becoming hauteur.]

MAGGIE. Comtesse, these insinuations are unworthy of you. May I ask
where is my husband?

[The COMTESSE drops her a curtsey.]

COMTESSE. I believe your Haughtiness may find him in the Dutch
garden. Oh, I see through you. You are not to show him your speech.
But you are to get him to write another one, and somehow all your
additions will be in it. Think not, creature, that you can deceive
one so old in iniquity as the Comtesse de la Briere.