Em.: Only one miserable hen-baby.

Maj.: Let’s sound her on the subject.

(Enter Mrs Paley-Paget, R.)

Ah, good morning, Mrs Paly-Paget. I was just wondering at breakfast where did we meet last?

Mrs P.-P.: At the Criterion, wasn’t it? (Drops into vacant chair.)

Maj.: At the Criterion, of course.

Mrs P.-P.: I was dining with Lord and Lady Slugford. Charming people, but so mean. They took us afterwards to the Velodrome, to see some dancer interpreting Mendelssohn’s ‘songs without clothes.’ We were all packed up in a little box near the roof, and you may imagine how hot it was. It was like a Turkish bath. And, of course, one couldn’t see anything.

Maj.: Then it was not like a Turkish bath.

Mrs P.-P.: Major!

Em.: We were just talking of you when you joined us.

Mrs P.-P.: Really! Nothing very dreadful, I hope.

Em.: Oh, dear, no! It’s too early on the voyage for that sort of thing. We were feeling rather sorry for you.

Mrs P.-P.: Sorry for me? Whatever for?

Maj.: Your childless hearth and all that, you know. No little pattering feet.

Mrs P.-P.: Major! How dare you? I’ve got my little girl, I suppose you know. Her feet can patter as well as other children’s.

Maj.: Only one pair of feet.

Mrs P.-P.: Certainly. My child isn’t a centipede. Considering the way they move us about in those horrid jungle stations, without a decent bungalow to set one’s foot in, I consider I’ve got a hearthless child, rather than a childless hearth. Thank you for your sympathy all the same. I daresay it was well meant. Impertinence often is.

Em.: Dear Mrs Paly-Paget, we were only feeling sorry for your sweet little girl when she grows older, you know. No little brothers and sisters to play with.

Mrs P.-P.: Mrs Carewe, this conversation strikes me as being indelicate, to say the least of it. I’ve only been married two and a half years, and my family is naturally a small one.

Maj.: Isn’t it rather an exaggeration to talk of one little female child as a family? A family suggests numbers.

Mrs P.-P.: Really, Major, your language is extraordinary. I dare say I’ve only got a little female child, as you call it, at present—

Maj.: Oh, it won’t change into a boy later on, if that’s what you’re counting on. Take our word for it; we’ve had so much more experience in these affairs than you have. Once a female, always a female. Nature is not infallible, but she always abides by her mistakes.