Agnes.  Ah!  At least you must see that—­serious woman. [Rising, facing him.] You can’t fail to realise, even from this slight personal knowledge of me, that you are not dealing just now with some poor, feeble ballet-girl.

St. Olpherts.  But how well you put it! [Rising.] And how frank of you to furnish, as it were, a plan of the fortifications to the—­the—­

Agnes.  Why do you stick at “enemy”?

St. Olpherts.  It’s not the word.  Opponent!  For the moment, perhaps, opponent.  I am never an enemy, I hope, where your sex is concerned.

Agnes.  No, I am aware that you are not over-nice in the bestowal of your patronage—­where my sex is concerned.

St. Olpherts.  You regard my appearance in an affair of morals as a quaint one?

Agnes.  Your Grace is beginning to know me.

St. Olpherts.  Dear lady, you take pride, I hear, in belonging to—­The People.  You would delight me amazingly by giving me an inkling of the popular notion of my career.

Agnes. [Walking away.] Excuse me.

St. Olpherts. [Following her.] Please!  It would be instructive, perhaps chastening.  I entreat.

Agnes.  No.

St Olpherts.  You are letting sentiment intrude itself. [Sitting, in pain.] I challenge you.

Agnes.  At Eton you were curiously precocious.  The head-master, referring to your aptitude with books, prophesied a brilliant future for you; your tutor, alarmed by your attachment to a certain cottage at Ascot which was minus a host, thanked his stars to be rid of you.  At Oxford you closed all books, except, of course, betting-books.

St. Olpherts.  I detected the tendency of the age—­scholarship for the masses.  I considered it my turn to be merely intuitively intelligent.

Agnes.  You left Oxford a gambler and a spendthrift.  A year or two in town established you as an amiable, undisguised debauchee.  The rest is modern history.

St. Olpherts.  Complete your sketch.  Don’t stop at the—­rude outline.

Agnes.  Your affairs falling into disorder, you promptly married a wealthy woman—­the poor, rich lady who has for some years honoured you by being your duchess at a distance.  This burlesque of a marriage helped to reassure your friends, and actually obtained for you an ornamental appointment for which an over-taxed nation provides a handsome stipend.  But, to sum up, you must always remain an irritating source of uneasiness to your own order, as, luckily, you will always be a sharp-edged weapon in the hands of mine.

St. Olpherts. [With a polite smile.] Yours!  Ah, to that small, unruly section to which I understand you particularly attach yourself.  To the—­