RANKIN (cannily). I take your point, Leddy Ceecily. It alters the
case. I shall certainly make no allusion to it.
LADY CICELY (magnanimously). Well, then, I won't either. There!
They shake hands on it. Sir Howard comes in.
SIR HOWARD. Good morning Mr. Rankin. I hope you got home safely
from the yacht last night.
RANKIN. Quite safe, thank ye, Sir Howrrd.
LADY CICELY. Howard, he's in a hurry. Don't make him stop to talk.
SIR HOWARD. Very good, very good. (He comes to the table and takes
Lady Cicely's chair.)
RANKIN. Oo revoir, Leddy Ceecily.
LADY CICELY. Bless you, Mr. Rankin. (Rankin goes out. She comes to
the other end of the table, looking at Sir Howard with a troubled,
sorrowfully sympathetic air, but unconsciously making her right
hand stalk about the table on the tips of its fingers in a
tentative stealthy way which would put Sir Howard on his guard if
he were in a suspicious frame of mind, which, as it happens, he is
not.) I'm so sorry for you, Howard, about this unfortunate
inquiry.
SIR HOWARD (swinging round on his chair, astonished). Sorry for
ME! Why?
LADY CICELY. It will look so dreadful. Your own nephew, you know.
SIR HOWARD. Cicely: an English judge has no nephews, no sons even,
when he has to carry out the law.
LADY CICELY. But then he oughtn't to have any property either.
People will never understand about the West Indian Estate. They'll
think you're the wicked uncle out of the Babes in the Wood.
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