We are really only
waiting till my brother recovers and can take us back to our hotel.
MAGGIE. I'll tell him.
[She is glad to disappear up the stair.]
COMTESSE. The lady seems distressed. Is she a relation of Mr. Shand?
DAVID. Not for to say a relation. She's my sister. Our name is Wylie.
[But granite quarries are nothing to them.]
COMTESSE. How do you do. You are the committee man of Mr. Shand?
DAVID. No, just friends.
COMTESSE [gaily to the basins]. Aha! I know you. Next, please! Sybil,
do you weigh yourself, or are you asleep?
[LADY SYBIL has sunk indolently into a weighing-chair.]
SYBIL. Not quite, Auntie.
COMTESSE [the mirror of la politesse]. Tell me all about Mr. Shand.
Was it here that he--picked up the pin?
DAVID. The pin?
COMTESSE. As I have read, a self-made man always begins by picking up
a pin. After that, as the memoirs say, his rise was rapid.
[DAVID, however, is once more master of himself, and indeed has begun
to tot up the cost of their garments.]
DAVID. It wasn't a pin he picked up, my lady; it was L300.
ALICK [who feels that JOHN's greatness has been outside the
conversation quite long enough]. And his rise wasn't so rapid, just
at first, David!
DAVID. He had his fight. His original intention was to become a
minister; he's university-educated, you know; he's not a working-man
member.
ALICK [with reverence].
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