GLADSTONE (gravely surprised).  So you have been wishing it, have you?

(And the devoted wife, setting her face, and steadying her voice, struggles on to give him what comfort she may, in the denial of her most cherished hopes.)

MRS. G. I’ve been waiting, waiting, waiting for it to come.  But it was the one thing I couldn’t say, till you—­till you thought of it yourself!

GLADSTONE.  Did I do so?  Or did others think of it for me?  I’m not sure; I’m not sure.  My judgment of the situation differed from theirs.  I couldn’t carry them with me.  In my own Cabinet I was a defeated man.  Only Morley stood by me then.

(Deep in the contemplation of his last political defeat, he is not looking at her face; and that is as well.  Her voice summons him almost cheerfully from his reverie.)

MRS. G. William dear, can you come shopping with me to-morrow?  Oh, no, to-morrow you are going to Windsor.  The day after, then.

GLADSTONE.  What is that for, my dear?

MRS. G. We have to get something for Dorothy’s birthday, before we go home.  You mustn’t forget things like that, you know.  Dorothy is important.

GLADSTONE.  Not merely important, my love; she is a portent—­of much that we shall never know.  Dorothy will live to see the coming of the new age.

MRS. G. The new age?  Well, so long as you let it alone, my dear, it may be as new as it likes; I shan’t mind.

GLADSTONE.  We will leave Dorothy to manage it her own way.

MRS. G. Then you will shop with me—­not to-morrow—­Thursday?

GLADSTONE.  Piccadilly, or Oxford Street?

MRS. G. I thought Gamage’s.

GLADSTONE.  Holborn?  That sounds adventurous.  Yes, my love, I will shop with you on Thursday—­if all goes well at Windsor to-morrow—­with all the contentment in the world. (They kiss.) Now go to bed; and presently I will come and read Herrick to you.

(She gets up and goes toward the door, when her attention is suddenly arrested by the carpet.)

MRS. G. William!  Do you see how this carpet is wearing out?  We shall have to get a new one.

GLADSTONE.  It won’t be necessary now.  Those at Hawarden, if I remember rightly, are sufficiently new to last out our time.

MRS. G. I wish I could think so, my dear.  They would if you didn’t give them such hard wear, walking about on them.  The way you wear things out has been my domestic tragedy all along!

GLADSTONE (standing with folded hands before her).  My love, I have just remembered; I have a confession to make.

MRS. G. What, another?  Oh, William!

GLADSTONE.  I cannot find either of my comforters.  I’m afraid I have lost them.  I had both this morning, and now both are gone.

MRS. G. Why, you are worse than ever, my dear!  Both in one day!  You have not done that for twenty years.