As it is ... there are more ways of killing
a cat than hanging it.
WEDGECROFT. Had I better give you a sleeping draught?
FRANCES. Are you doctoring him for once? Henry, have you at last managed to
overwork yourself?
TREBELL. No ... I started the evening by a charming little dinner at the Van
Meyer's ... sat next to Miss Grace Cutler, who is writing a _vie intime_ of
Louis Quinze and engaged me with anecdotes of the same.
FRANCES. A champion of her sex, whom I do not like.
WEDGECROFT. She's writing such a book to prove that women are equal to
anything.
_He goes towards the door and_ FRANCES _goes with him._ TREBELL _never
turns his head._
TREBELL. I shall not come and open the door for you ... but mind you shut
it.
FRANCES _comes back._
FRANCES. Henry ... this is dreadful about that poor little woman.
TREBELL. An unwelcome baby was arriving. She got some quack to kill her.
_These exact words are like a blow in the face to her, from which,
being a woman of brave common sense, she does not shrink._
TREBELL. What do you say to that?
_She walks away from him, thinking painfully._
FRANCES. She had never had a child. There's the common-place thing to
say.... Ungrateful little fool! But....
TREBELL. If you had been in her place?
FRANCES. [_Subtly._] I have never made the mistake of marrying.
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