SOPHY.

You have locked me in!

QUEX.

Yes.

SOPHY.

How dare you!

QUEX.

Why, you didn’t think you were going to have it all your own way, did you, Sophy?

SOPHY.

I’ll thank you to be less familiar.  Let me out.

QUEX.

Not I.

SOPHY.

You let me out directly.

QUEX.

[Pointing a finger at her.] You’ll gain nothing by raging, my good girl.  Ha! now you appreciate the curiously awkward position in which you have placed yourself.

SOPHY.

I’ve placed myself in no—­

QUEX.

Oh, come, come!  Taking me at my blackest, I’m not quite the kind of man that a young woman who prides herself upon her respectability desires to be mixed up with in this fashion.

SOPHY.

Mixed up with!

QUEX.

Well—­[stretching out his arms] here we are, you know.

SOPHY.

Here we are!

QUEX.

You and I, dear Sophy. [Putting his leg over the arm of his chair.]
Now just sit down—­

SOPHY.

I sha’n’t.

QUEX.

While I picture to you what will happen in the morning.

SOPHY.

In the morning?

QUEX.

In a few hours’ time.  In the first place, you will be called in your room.  You won’t be there.

SOPHY.

Won’t I!

QUEX.

No.  You won’t be there.  A little later my man will come to my room.  I sha’n’t be there.  At about the same hour, her Grace will require your attendance.  Where will you be?  She will then, naturally, desire to return to her own apartments.  You are intelligent enough, I fancy, to imagine the rest. [After a brief pause, she breaks into a peal of soft, derisive laughter.] I am deeply flattered by your enjoyment of the prospect.

SOPHY.

Ha, ha, ha! why, you must take me for a fool!

QUEX.

Why?

SOPHY.

Why, can’t you see that our being found together like this, here or anywhere, would do for you as well as for me?

QUEX.

[Rising.] Of course I see it. [Advancing to her.] But, my dear Sophy, I am already done for. You provide for that.  And so, if I have to part with my last shred of character, I will lose it in association with a woman of your class rather than with a lady whom I, with the rest of the world, hold in the highest esteem.

SOPHY.

[After a pause.] Ho! oh, indeed?

QUEX.

Yes.  Yes, indeed.

SOPHY.

[With a shade less confidence.] Ha, ha! if your lordship thinks to frighten me, you’ve got hold of the wrong customer.  Ha, ha, ha! two or three things you haven’t reckoned for, I can assure you.  Here’s one—­I told Miss Muriel exactly what I heard, between you and your Duchess, in the garden this evening.