helped you in the smallest way?

JOHN [thinking it out again]. No, nobody.

MAGGIE. Not even Lady Sybil?

JOHN. I'm beginning to doubt it. It's very curious, though, Maggie,
that this speech should be disappointing.

MAGGIE. It's just that Mr. Venables hasn't the brains to see how good
it is.

JOHN. That must be it. [But he is too good a man to rest satisfied
with this.] No, Maggie, it's not. Somehow I seem to have lost my neat
way of saying things.

MAGGIE [almost cooing]. It will come back to you.

JOHN [forlorn]. If you knew how I've tried.

MAGGIE [cautiously]. Maybe if you were to try again; and I'll just
come and sit beside you, and knit. I think the click of the needles
sometimes put you in the mood.

JOHN. Hardly that; and yet many a Shandism have I knocked off while
you were sitting beside me knitting. I suppose it was the quietness.

MAGGIE. Very likely.

JOHN [with another inspiration]. Maggie!