[He takes the silver box and leaves them with a little bow.]

     [Barthwick makes a move to follow him, then dashing his hands
     beneath his coat tails, speaks with desperation.]

Barthwick.  I do wish you’d leave me to manage things myself.  You will put your nose into matters you know nothing of.  A pretty mess you’ve made of this!

Mrs. Barthwick. [Coldly.] I don’t in the least know what you’re talking about.  If you can’t stand up for your rights, I can.  I ’ve no patience with your principles, it’s such nonsense.

Barthwick.  Principles!  Good Heavens!  What have principles to do with it for goodness sake?  Don’t you know that Jack was drunk last night!

Jack.  Dad!

Mrs. Barthwick. [In horror rising.] Jack!

Jack.  Look here, Mother—­I had supper.  Everybody does.  I mean to say—­you know what I mean—­it’s absurd to call it being drunk.  At Oxford everybody gets a bit “on” sometimes——­

Mrs. Barthwick.  Well, I think it’s most dreadful!  If that is really what you do at Oxford?

Jack. [Angrily.] Well, why did you send me there?  One must do as other fellows do.  It’s such nonsense, I mean, to call it being drunk.  Of course I ’m awfully sorry.  I ’ve had such a beastly headache all day.

Barthwick.  Tcha!  If you’d only had the common decency to remember what happened when you came in.  Then we should know what truth there was in what this fellow says—­as it is, it’s all the most confounded darkness.

Jack. [Staring as though at half-formed visions.] I just get a—­ and then—­it ’s gone——­

Mrs. Barthwick.  Oh, Jack! do you mean to say you were so tipsy you can’t even remember——­

Jack.  Look here, Mother!  Of course I remember I came—­I must have come——­

Barthwick. [Unguardedly, and walking up and down.] Tcha!—­and that infernal purse!  Good Heavens!  It’ll get into the papers.  Who on earth could have foreseen a thing like this?  Better to have lost a dozen cigarette-boxes, and said nothing about it. [To his wife.] It’s all your doing.  I told you so from the first.  I wish to goodness Roper would come!

Mrs. Barthwick. [Sharply.] I don’t know what you’re talking about, John.

Barthwick. [Turning on her.] No, you—­you—­you don’t know anything! [Sharply.] Where the devil is Roper?  If he can see a way out of this he’s a better man than I take him for.  I defy any one to see a way out of it.  I can’t.

Jack.  Look here, don’t excite Dad—­I can simply say I was too beastly tired, and don’t remember anything except that I came in and [in a dying voice] went to bed the same as usual.

Barthwick.  Went to bed?  Who knows where you went—­I ’ve lost all confidence.  For all I know you slept on the floor.