Culch. (alone).  PODBURY knows very little about women.  If HYP—­Miss PRENDERGAST—­once found out why I renounced my suitorship, I should have very little peace, I know that—­I’ve taken particular care not to betray my attachment to MAUD.  I’m afraid she’s beginning to notice it, but I must be careful.  I don’t like this sudden intimacy between them—­it makes things so very awkward.  They’ve been sitting under that tree over there for the last half-hour, and goodness only knows what confidences they may have exchanged!  I really must go up and put a stop to it, presently.

UNDER THE TREE.

Hypatia. I only tell you all this, sweetest one, because I do think you have rather too low an opinion of men as a class, and I wanted to show you that I have met at least one man who was capable of a real and disinterested devotion.

Maud. Well, I allowed that was about your idea.

Hyp. And don’t you recognise that it was very fine of him to give up everything for his friend’s sake?

Maud.  I guess it depends how much “everything” amounted to.

Hyp. (annoyed).  I thought, darling, I had made it perfectly plain what a sacrifice it meant to him. I know how much he—­I needn’t tell you there are certain symptoms one can_not_ be deceived in.

Maud. No, I guess you needn’t tell me that, love.  And it was perfectly lovely of him to give you up, when he was under vow for you and all, sooner than stand in his friend’s light—­only I don’t just see how that was going to help his friend any.

Hyp. Don’t you, dearest?  Not when the friend was under vow for me, too?

Maud. Well, HYPATIA PRENDERGAST!  And how many admirers do you have around under vow, as a regular thing?

Hyp. There were only those two.  RUSKIN permits as many as seven at one time.

Maud. That’s a vurry liberal allowance, too.  I don’t see how there’d be sufficient suitors to go round.  But maybe each gentleman can be under vow for seven distinct girls, to make things sort of square now?

Hyp. Certainly not.  The whole beauty of the idea lies in the unselfish and exclusive devotion of every knight to the same sovereign lady.  In this case I happen to know that the—­a—­individual had never met his ideal until—­

Maud. Until he met you?  At Nuremberg, wasn’t it?  My!  And what was his name?  Do tell!

Hyp. You must not press me, sweetest, for I cannot tell that—­even to you.

Maud. I don’t believe but what I could guess.  But say, you didn’t care any for him, or you’d never have let him go like that? I wouldn’t.  I should have suspected there was something behind!

Hyp. My feelings towards him were purely potential.  I did him the simple justice to believe that his self-abnegation was sincere.  But, with your practical, cynical little mind, darling, you are hardly capable of—­excuse me for saying so—­of appreciating the real value and meaning of such magnanimity!