Praed [within] Quite, thank you.

Mrs Warren [within] Leave the door open, dearie. [Vivie frowns; but Frank checks her with a gesture, and steals to the cottage door, which he softly sets wide open].  Oh Lor, what a draught!  Youd better shut it, dear.

[Vivie shuts it with a slam, and then, noting with disgust that her mother’s hat and shawl are lying about, takes them tidily to the window seat, whilst Frank noiselessly shuts the cottage door.]

Frank [exulting] Aha!  Got rid of em.  Well, Vivvums:  what do you think of my governor?

Vivie [preoccupied and serious] I’ve hardly spoken to him.  He doesn’t strike me as a particularly able person.

Frank.  Well, you know, the old man is not altogether such a fool as he looks.  You see, he was shoved into the Church, rather; and in trying to live up to it he makes a much bigger ass of himself than he really is.  I don’t dislike him as much as you might expect.  He means well.  How do you think youll get on with him?

Vivie [rather grimly] I don’t think my future life will be much concerned with him, or with any of that old circle of my mother’s, except perhaps Praed. [She sits down on the settle] What do you think of my mother?

Frank.  Really and truly?

Vivie.  Yes, really and truly.

Frank.  Well, she’s ever so jolly.  But she’s rather a caution, isn’t she? 
And Crofts!  Oh, my eye, Crofts! [He sits beside her].

Vivie.  What a lot, Frank!

Frank.  What a crew!

Vivie [with intense contempt for them] If I thought that I was like that—­that I was going to be a waster, shifting along from one meal to another with no purpose, and no character, and no grit in me, I’d open an artery and bleed to death without one moment’s hesitation.

Frank.  Oh no, you wouldn’t.  Why should they take any grind when they can afford not to?  I wish I had their luck.  No:  what I object to is their form.  It isn’t the thing:  it’s slovenly, ever so slovenly.

Vivie.  Do you think your form will be any better when youre as old as
Crofts, if you don’t work?

Frank.  Of course I do.  Ever so much better.  Vivvums mustn’t lecture:  her little boy’s incorrigible. [He attempts to take her face caressingly in his hands].

Vivie [striking his hands down sharply] Off with you:  Vivvums is not in a humor for petting her little boy this evening. [She rises and comes forward to the other side of the room].

Frank [following her] How unkind!

Vivie [stamping at him] Be serious.  I’m serious.

Frank.  Good.  Let us talk learnedly, Miss Warren:  do you know that all the most advanced thinkers are agreed that half the diseases of modern civilization are due to starvation of the affections of the young.  Now, I—­