BELINDA (severely). Only two.

DELIA. Two! You abandoned woman!

BELINDA. It's something in the air, darling. I've never been in
Devonshire in April before.

DELIA. Is it really serious this time?

BELINDA (pained). I wish you wouldn't say _this_ time, Delia. It
sounds so unromantic. If you'd only put it into French--_cette
fois_--it sounds so much better. _Cette fois_. (Parentally.)
When one's daughter has just returned from an expensive schooling
in Paris, one likes to feel--

DELIA. What I meant, dear, was, am I to have a stepfather at last?

BELINDA. Now you're being _too_ French, darling.

DELIA. Why, do you still think father may be alive?

BELINDA. Why not? It's only eighteen years since he left us, and he
was quite a young man then.

DELIA. Yes, but surely you'd have heard from him in all those
years, if he'd been alive?

BELINDA. Well, he hasn't heard from _me, _and I'm still alive.

DELIA (looking earnestly at her mother). I shall never understand