BARNABAS.  I am not going to leave this room until we get to the bottom of this swindle.

MRS LUTESTRING [turning with deadly gravity on the Accountant General]
This what, did you say?

CONFUCIUS.  These expressions cannot be sustained.  You obscure the discussion in using them.

BARNABAS [glad to escape from her gaze by addressing Confucius] Well, this unnatural horror.  Will that satisfy you?

CONFUCIUS.  That is in order.  But we do not commit ourselves to the implications of the word horror.

THE ARCHBISHOP.  By the word horror the Accountant General means only something unusual.

CONFUCIUS.  I notice that the honorable Domestic Minister, on learning the advanced age of the venerable prelate, shews no sign of surprise or incredulity.

BURGE-LUBIN.  She doesn’t take it seriously.  Who would?  Eh, Mrs Lutestring?

MRS LUTESTRING.  I take it very seriously indeed, Mr President.  I see now that I was not mistaken at first.  I have met the Archbishop before.

THE ARCHBISHOP.  I felt sure of it.  This vision of a door opening to me, and a woman’s face welcoming me, must be a reminiscence of something that really happened; though I see it now as an angel opening the gate of heaven.

MRS LUTESTRING.  Or a parlor maid opening the door of the house of the young woman you were in love with?

THE ARCHBISHOP [making a wry face] Is that the reality?  How these things grow in our imagination!  But may I say, Mrs Lutestring, that the transfiguration of a parlor maid to an angel is not more amazing than her transfiguration to the very dignified and able Domestic Minister I am addressing.  I recognize the angel in you.  Frankly, I do not recognize the parlor maid.

BURGE-LUBIN.  Whats a parlor maid?

MRS LUTESTRING.  An extinct species.  A woman in a black dress and white apron, who opened the house door when people knocked or rang, and was either your tyrant or your slave.  I was a parlor maid in the house of one of the Accountant General’s remote ancestors. [To Confucius] You asked me my age, Mr Chief Secretary, I am two hundred and seventy-four.

BURGE-LUBIN [gallantly] You don’t look it.  You really don’t look it.

MRS LUTESTRING [turning her face gravely towards him] Look again, Mr President.

BURGE-LUBIN [looking at her bravely until the smile fades from his face, and he suddenly covers his eyes with his hands] Yes:  you do look it.  I am convinced.  It’s true.  Now call up the Lunatic Asylum, Confucius; and tell them to send an ambulance for me.

MRS LUTESTRING [to the Archbishop] Why have you given away your secret? our secret?

THE ARCHBISHOP.  They found it out.  The cinema records betrayed me.  But I never dreamt that there were others.  Did you?

MRS LUTESTRING.  I knew one other.  She was a cook.  She grew tired, and killed herself.