A discovery.
LADY PEMBURY. How proud she would have been!
STRANGER. Who?
LADY PEMBURY. Your wife if you had had one; your mother if she had
been alive.
STRANGER (violently). Look here, you leave my mother out of it. My
business is with Sir John---- (sneeringly) Sir John Pembury, K.B.E. If
I want to talk about my mother, he and I will have a nice little talk
together about her. Yes, and about my father, too.
(LADY PEMBURY understands at last. She stands up slowly, and looks at
him, horrified.)
LADY PEMBURY. What do you mean?
STRANGER. A thousand a year. You said so yourself. Yes, I think it's
worth a thousand a year.
LADY PEMBURY. Who is your father? What's your name?
STRANGER. Didn't I tell you I hadn't got a name? (Bitterly) And if you
want to know why, ask Sir John Pembury, K.B.E.
LADY PEMBURY (in a whisper). He's your father.
STRANGER. Yes. And I'm his loving son--come to see him at last, after
all these years.
LADY PEMBURY (hardly able to ask it). How--how old are you?
STRANGER. Thirty.
LADY PEMBURY (sitting down on the sofa). Oh, thank God! Thank God!
STRANGER (upset by her emotion). Look here, I didn't want all this. I
ask you--did I begin it? It was you who kept asking questions.
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