Carve. (Slightly hurt.) Oh, not so bad as that!  And then it’s only fair to say he has his moments of great daring—­you may say rashness.

Pascoe.  All timid people are like that.

Carve.  Are they? (Musing.) We’re here now owing to one of his moments of rashness.

Pascoe.  Indeed!

Carve.  Yes.  We met an English lady in a village in Andalusia, and—­well, of course, I can’t tell you everything—­but she flirted with him and he flirted with her.

Pascoe.  Under his own name?

Carve.  Yes.  And then he proposed to her.  I knew all along it was a blunder.

Pascoe. (Ironic.) Did you?

Carve.  Yes.  She belonged to the aristocracy, and she was one of those amateur painters that wander about the Continent by themselves—­you know.

Pascoe.  And did she accept?

Carve.  Oh yes.  They got as far as Madrid together, and then all of a sudden my esteemed saw that he had made a mistake.

Pascoe.  And what then?

Carve.  We fled the country.  We hooked it.  The idea of coming to London struck him—­just the caprice of a man who’s lost his head—­and here we are.

Pascoe. (After a pause.) He doesn’t seem to me from the look of him to be a man who’d—­shall we say?—­strictly avoided women.

Carve. (Startled, with a gesture towards back.) Him?

     (Pascoe nods.)

Really!  Confound him!  Now I’ve always suspected that; though he manages to keep his goings-on devilish quiet.

Pascoe. (Rising.) It occurs to me, my friend, that I’m listening to too much.  But you’re so persuasive.

Carve.  It’s such a pleasure to talk freely—­for once in a way.

Pascoe.  Freely—­is the word.

Carve.  Oh!  He won’t mind!

Pascoe. (In a peculiar tone.) It’s quite possible!

     (Enter Horning.)

Horning. (To Carve.) I say, it’s just occurred to me, Mr. Carve hasn’t been digging or gardening or anything, I suppose, and then taken cold after?

Carve.  Digging?  Oh no.  He must have got a bad chill on the steamer.  Why?

Horning.  Nothing.  Only his hands and finger-nails are so rough.

Carve. (After thinking.) Oh, I see!  All artists are like that.  Messing about with paints and acids and things.  Look at my hands.

Pascoe.  But are you an artist too?

Carve. (Recovering himself, calmly.) No, no.

Pascoe. (To Horning.) How’s he going on?

Horning. (Shrugs his shoulders.) I’m sure the base of both lungs is practically solid.

Pascoe.  Well, we can’t do more than we have done, my boy.

Horning.  He’ll never pull through.