Grace (firmly).  It is not your fault in the least, Mr. Charteris.  Dr. Paramore:  will you oblige me by finding Sylvia Craven for me, if you can?

Paramore (hesitating).  But—­

Grace.  I want you to go now, if you please.

Paramore (succumbing).  Certainly. (He bows and goes out by the staircase door.)

Grace.  You are going with him, Charteris.

Julia.  You will not leave me here to be insulted by this woman, Mr.
Charteris. (She takes his arm as if to go with him.)

Grace.  When two ladies quarrel in this club, it is against the rules to settle it when there are gentlemen present—­especially the gentleman they are quarrelling about.  I presume you do not wish to break that rule, Miss Craven. (Julia sullenly drops Charteris’s arm.  Grace turns to Charteris and adds) Now!  Trot off.

Charteris.  Certainly, certainly. (He follows Paramore ignominiously.)

Grace (to Julia, with quiet peremptoriness).  Now:  what have you to say to me?

Julia (suddenly throwing herself tragically on her knees at Grace’s feet).  Don’t take him from me.  Oh don’t—­don’t be so cruel.  Give him back to me.  You don’t know what you’re doing—­what our past has been—­how I love him.  You don’t know—­

Grace.  Get up; and don’t be a fool.  Suppose anyone comes in and sees you in that ridiculous attitude!

Julia.  I hardly know what I’m doing.  I don’t care what I’m doing:  I’m too miserable.  Oh, won’t you listen to me?

Grace.  Do you suppose I am a man to be imposed on by this sort of rubbish?

Julia (getting up and looking darkly at her).  You intend to take him from me, then?

Grace.  Do you expect me to help you to keep him after the way you have behaved?

Julia (trying her theatrical method in a milder form—­reasonable and impulsively goodnatured instead of tragic).  I know I was wrong to act as I did last night.  I beg your pardon.  I am sorry.  I was mad.

Grace.  Not a bit mad.  You calculated to an inch how far you could go.  When he is present to stand between us and play out the scene with you, I count for nothing.  When we are alone you fall back on your natural way of getting anything you want—­crying for it like a baby until it is given to you.

Julia (with unconcealed hatred).  You learnt this from him.

Grace.  I learnt it from yourself, last night and now.  How I hate to be a woman when I see, by you, what wretched childish creatures we are!  Those two men would cut you dead and have you turned out of the club if you were a man and had behaved in such a way before them.  But because you are only a woman, they are forbearing, sympathetic, gallant—­Oh, if you had a scrap of self-respect, their indulgence would make you creep all over.  I understand now why Charteris has no respect for women.