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.
[There can be but one reply from a good wife to such a charge, and at
once the COMTESSE is left alone with her shame. Anon a footman
appears. You know how they come and go.]
FOOTMAN. You rang, my lady?
COMTESSE. Did I? Ah, yes, but why? [He is but lately from the
ploughshare and cannot help her. In this quandary her eyes alight
upon the bag. She is unfortunately too abandoned to feel her shame;
she still thinks that she has the choice of weapons. She takes the
speech from the bag and bestows it on her servitor.] Take this to Mr.
Venables, please, and say it is from Mr. Shand. [THOMAS--but in the
end we shall probably call him JOHN--departs with the dangerous
papers; and when MAGGIE returns she finds that the COMTESSE is once
more engaged in her interrupted game of Patience.] You did not find
him?
[All the bravery has dropped from MAGGIE's face.
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