Part 15 (1/2)

KIRKE. [Writing.] H'm--[To AGNES.] Are you often guilty of this sort of thing?

AGNES. [Laughing.] I've never fainted before in my life; I don't mean to do so again.

KIRKE. [Writing.] Should you alter your mind about that, do select a suitable spot on the next occasion. What was it your head came against?

GERTRUDE. A wooden chest, Mr. Cleeve thinks.

AGNES. With beautiful, rusty, iron clamps. [Putting her hand to her head, and addressing GERTRUDE.] The price of vanity.

KIRKE. Vanity?

AGNES. Lucas was to take me out to dinner. While I was waiting for him to dress I must needs stand and survey my full length in a mirror.

KIRKE. [Glancing at her.] A very excusable proceeding.

AGNES. Suddenly the room sank and left me--so the feeling was--in the air.

KIRKE. Well, most women can manage to look in their pier-gla.s.ses without swooning--eh, Mrs Thorpe?

GERTRUDE. [Smiling.] How should I know doctor?

KIRKE. [Blotting his writing.] There. How goes the time?

GERTRUDE. Half past eight.

KIRKE. I'll leave this prescription at Mantovani's myself. I can get it made up to-night.

AGNES. [Taking the prescription out of his hand playfully.] Let me look.

KIRKE. [Protesting.] Now, now!

AGNES. [Reading the prescription.] Ha, ha! After all, what humbugs doctors are!

KIRKE. You've never heard me deny it.

AGNES. [Returning the prescription to him.] But I'll swallow it--for the dignity of my old profession. [She reaches out her hand to take a cigarette.]

KIRKE. Don't smoke too many of those things.

AGNES. They never harm me. It's a survival of the time in my life when the cupboard was always empty. [Striking a match.] Only it had to be stronger tobacco in those days, I can tell you. [She lights her cigarette. GERTRUDE is a.s.sisting KIRKE with his overcoat. LUCAS enters, in evening dress, looking younger, almost boyish.]

LUCAS. [Brightly.] Well?

KIRKE. She's to have a cup of good bouillon--Mrs. Thorpe is going to look after that--and anything else she fancies. She's alright.

[Shaking hands with AGNES.] The excitement of putting on that pretty frock--[AGNES gives a hard little laugh. Shaking hands with LUCAS.]

I'll look in tomorrow. [Turning to GERTRUDE.] Oh, just a word with you, nurse. [LUCAS has been bending over AGNES affectionately; he now sits by her, and they talk in undertones; he lights a cigarette from hers.]

KIRKE. [To GERTRUDE.] There's many a true word, et cetera.

GERTRUDE. Excitement?