Oh, please do, Mrs. Knowle.
MRS. KNOWLE (archly). Not Mrs. Knowle! Can't you think of a better
name?
BOBBY (wondering if he ought to call her MARY). Er--I'm--I'm afraid I
don't quite--
MRS. KNOWLE. Mother.
BOBBY. Oh, but I say--
MRS. KNOWLE (giving him her hand). And now come and sit on the sofa
with me, and tell me all about it.
(They go to the sofa together.)
BOBBY. But I say, Mrs. Knowle--
MRS. KNOWLE (shaking a finger playfully at him). Not Mrs. Knowle,
Bobby.
BOBBY. But I say, you mustn't think--I mean Sandy and I--we aren't--
MRS. KNOWLE. You don't mean to tell me, Mr. Coote, that she has
refused you again.
BOBBY. Yes. I say, I'd much rather not talk about it.
MRS. KNOWLE. Well, it just shows you that what I said the other day
was true. Girls don't know their own minds.
BOBBY (ruefully). I think Sandy knows hers--about me, anyhow.
MRS. KNOWLE. Mr. Coote, you are forgetting what the poet
said--Shakespeare, or was it the other man?--"Faint heart never won
fair lady." If Mr. Knowle had had a faint heart, he would never have
won me. Seven times I refused him, and seven times he came again--like
Jacob. The eighth time he drew out a revolver, and threatened to shoot
himself.
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