Janet.  Well, I may be wrong, but it occurred to me your idea was that you’d like to have a look at me before giving yourself away, as it were.  Of course, I sent you my photographs, but photographs aren’t much better than gravestones—­for being reliable, and some folks are prejudiced against matrimonial agencies, even when they make use of them.  It’s natural.  Now I’ve got no such prejudice.  If you want to get married you want to get married, and there you are.  It’s no use pretending you don’t.  And there’s as much chance of being happy through a matrimonial agency as any other way.  At least—­that’s what I think.

Carve. (Collecting his wits.) Just so.

Janet.  You may tell me that people who go to a matrimonial agency stand a chance of getting let in.  Well, people who don’t go to a matrimonial agency stand a chance of getting let in, too.  Besides, I shouldn’t give a baby a razor for a birthday present, and I shouldn’t advise a young girl to go to a matrimonial agency.  But I’m not a young girl.  If it’s a question of the male sex, I may say that I’ve been there before.  You understand me?

Carve.  Quite.

Janet.  Well, I think I told you pretty nearly everything important in my letter.  Didn’t I?

Carve.  Let me see now——­

Janet.  I mean the one I sent to the office of the Matrimonial News.

Carve. (Mechanically feeling in his pockets, pulling out papers and putting them back.) Where did I put it?  Oh, perhaps it’s in the pocket of another coat. (Goes to a coat of Shawn’s hanging on inner knob of double doors, and empties all the pockets, bringing the contents, including a newspaper, to the table.)

Janet. (Picking up an envelope.) Yes, that’s it—­I can feel the photograph.  You seem to keep things in the pockets of all your coats.

Carve.  If you knew what I’ve been through this last day or two——­

Janet. (Soothingly.) Yes, yes.

Carve.  I haven’t had a quiet moment.  Now——­(Reading letter.) “Dear Sir, in reply to your advertisement, I write to you with particulars of my case.  I am a widow, aged thirty-two years——­”

Janet.  And anybody that likes can see my birth certificate.  That’s what I call talking.

Carve.  My dear lady! (Continuing to read.) “Thirty-two years.  My father was a jobbing builder, well known in Putney and Wandsworth.  My husband was a rent collector and estate agent.  He died four years ago of appendicitis (hesitating) caught——­”

Janet.  Caused.

Carve.  I beg pardon, “—­caused by accidentally swallowing a bristle out of his tooth-brush, the same being discovered at the operation.  I am an orphan, a widow, and have no children.  In consequence I feel very lonely, and my first experience not being distasteful, indeed the reverse, I am anxious to try again, provided I can meet with a sincere helpmeet of good family.  I am the owner of the above house, rated at forty-five pounds a year, in one of the nicest streets in Putney, and I have private means of some three pounds a week, from brewery shares bringing in fifteen per cent.  I will say nothing about my appearance, but enclose latest carte-de-visite photograph.”