It's your reception, Maggie; this will prove you.
MAGGIE [growing smaller]. Tell me what you know about this Lady Sybil?
JOHN. The only thing I know about her is that she thinks me vulgar.
MAGGIE. You?
JOHN. She has attended some of my meetings, and I'm told she said that.
MAGGIE. What could the woman mean?
JOHN. I wonder. When I come down I'll ask her.
[With his departure MAGGIE'S nervousness increases.]
ALICK [encouragingly]. In at them, Maggie, with your French.
MAGGIE. It's all slipping from me, father.
DAVID [gloomily]. I'm sure to say 'for to come for to go.'
[The newcomers glorify the room, and MAGGIE feels that they have lifted her up with the tongs and deposited her in one of the basins. They are far from intending to be rude; it is not their fault that thus do swans scatter the ducks. They do not know that they are guests of the family, they think merely that they are waiting with other strangers in a public room; they undulate inquiringly, and if MAGGIE could undulate in return she would have no cause for offence. But she suddenly realises that this is an art as yet denied her, and that though DAVID might buy her evening-gowns as fine as theirs [and is at this moment probably deciding to do so], she would look better carrying them in her arms than on her person. She also feels that to emerge from wraps as they are doing is more difficult than to plank your money on the counter for them. The COMTESSE she could forgive, for she is old; but LADY SYBIL is young and beautiful and comes lazily to rest like a stately ship of Tarsus.]
COMTESSE [smiling divinely, and speaking with such a pretty accent]. I hope one is not in the way. We were told we might wait.
MAGGIE [bravely climbing out of the basin]. Certainly--I am sure if you will be so--it is--
[She knows that DAVID and her father are very sorry for her.]
[A high voice is heard orating outside.]
SYBIL [screwing her nose deliciously]. He is at it again, Auntie.
COMTESSE. Mon Dieu! [Like one begging pardon of the universe] It is Mr. Tenterden, you understand, making one more of his delightful speeches to the crowd. WOULD you be so charming as to shut the door?
[This to DAVID in such appeal that she is evidently making the petition of her life. DAVID saves her.]
MAGGIE [determined not to go under]. J'espere que vous--trouvez-- cette--reunion--interessante?
COMTESSE. Vous parlez francais? Mais c'est charmant! Voyons, causons un peu. Racontez-moi tout de ce grand homme, toutes les choses merveilleuses qu'il a faites.
MAGGIE. I--I--Je connais--[Alas!]
COMTESSE [naughtily]. Forgive me, Mademoiselle, I thought you spoke French.
SYBIL [who knows that DAVID admires her shoulders]. How wicked of you, Auntie. [To MAGGIE] I assure you none of us can understand her when she gallops at that pace.
MAGGIE [crushed]. It doesn't matter. I will tell Mr. Shand that you are here.
SYBIL [drawling]. Please don't trouble him. We are really only waiting till my brother recovers and can take us back to our hotel.
MAGGIE. I'll tell him.
[She is glad to disappear up the stair.]
COMTESSE. The lady seems distressed. Is she a relation of Mr. Shand?
DAVID. Not for to say a relation. She's my sister. Our name is Wylie.
[But granite quarries are nothing to them.]
COMTESSE. How do you do. You are the committee man of Mr. Shand?
DAVID. No, just friends.
COMTESSE [gaily to the basins]. Aha! I know you. Next, please! Sybil, do you weigh yourself, or are you asleep?
[LADY SYBIL has sunk indolently into a weighing-chair.]
SYBIL. Not quite, Auntie.
COMTESSE [the mirror of la politesse]. Tell me all about Mr. Shand. Was it here that he--picked up the pin?
DAVID. The pin?
COMTESSE. As I have read, a self-made man always begins by picking up a pin. After that, as the memoirs say, his rise was rapid.
[DAVID, however, is once more master of himself, and indeed has begun to tot up the cost of their garments.]
DAVID. It wasn't a pin he picked up, my lady; it was L300.