JANE.  Oh, but don’t you think Melisande is beautiful, Aunt Mary?  I mean really beautiful.

MRS. KNOWLE.  Well, it never seems to me quite respectable, not for a nicely-brought-up young girl in a Christian house.  It makes me think of the sort of person who meets a strange young man to whom she has never been introduced, and talks to him in a forest with her hair coming down.  They find her afterwards floating in a pool.  Not at all the thing one wants for one’s daughter.

JANE.  Oh, but how thrilling it sounds!

MRS. KNOWLE.  Well, I think you are safer with “Jane,” dear.  Your mother knew what she was about.  And if I can save my only child from floating in a pool by calling her Sandy, I certainly think it is my duty to do so.

MELISANDE (to her self ecstatically).  Melisande!

MRS. KNOWLE (to MELISANDE).  Oh, and talking about floating in a pool reminds me about the bread-sauce at dinner to-night.  You heard what your father said?  You must give cook a good talking to in the morning.  She has been getting very careless lately.  I don’t know what’s come over her.

MELISANDE. I’ve come over her.  When you were over her, everything was all right.  You know all about housekeeping; you take an interest in it.  I don’t.  I hate it.  How can you expect the house to be run properly when they all know I hate it?  Why did you ever give it up and make me do it when you know how I hate it?

MRS. KNOWLE.  Well, you must learn not to hate it.  I’m sure Jane here doesn’t hate it, and her mother is always telling me what a great help she is.

MELISANDE (warningly).  It’s no good your saying you like it, Jane, after what you told me yesterday.

JANE.  I don’t like it, but it doesn’t make me miserable doing it.  But then I’m different.  I’m not romantic like Melisande.

MELISANDE.  One doesn’t need to be very romantic not to want to talk about bread-sauce.  Bread-sauce on a night like this!

MRS. KNOWLE.  Well, I’m only thinking of you, Sandy, not of myself.  If I thought about myself I should disregard all the warnings that Dr. Anderson keeps giving me, and I should insist on doing the housekeeping just as I always used to.  But I have to think of you.  I want to see you married to some nice, steady young man before I die—­my handkerchief, Jane—­(JANE gets up and gives her her handkerchief from the other end of the sofa)—­before I die (she touches her eyes with her handkerchief), and no nice young man will want to marry you, if you haven’t learnt how to look after his house for him.

MELISANDE (contemptuously).  If that’s marriage, I shall never get married.

JANE (shocked).  Melisande, darling!