Now look here, I'd better tell you straight that
there's no blackmail about this at all. He's my father, isn't he?
Well, can't a son come to his father if he's hard up? Where are your
threatening letters? Where's the blackmail? Anyway, what's he going to
do about it? Put his son in prison?
LADY PEMBURY (following her own thoughts). You're thirty. Thank God
for that. We hadn't met then. . . . Ah, but he ought to have told me. He
ought to have told me.
STRANGER. P'raps he thought you wouldn't marry him, if he did.
LADY PEMBURY. Do you think that was it? (Earnestly to him, as if he
were an old friend) You know men--young men. I never had a son; I
never had any brothers. Do they tell? They ought to, oughtn't they?
STRANGER. Well--well, if you ask _me_--I say, look here, this isn't
the sort of thing one discusses with a lady.
LADY PEMBURY. Isn't it? But one can talk to a friend.
STRANGER (scornfully). You and me look like friends, don't we?
LADY PEMBURY (smiling). Well, we do, rather.
(He gets up hastily and moves further away from her.)
STRANGER. I know what _your_ game is. Don't think I don't see it.
LADY PEMBURY. What is it?
STRANGER. Falling on your knees, and saying with tears in your eyes:
"Oh, kind friend, spare me poor husband!" _I_ know the sort of thing.
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