the door while Oliver
and Anabel were talking on the other?

MRS. BARLOW. You'd make a detective, Gerald--you're so good at putting
two and two together. I listened till I'd heard as much as I wanted.
I'm not sure I didn't come down here hoping to hear another conversation
going on.

GERALD. Listen outside the door, darling?

MRS. BARLOW. There'd be nothing to listen to if I were inside.

GERALD. It isn't usually done, you know.

MRS. BARLOW. I listen outside doors when I have occasion to be
interested--which isn't often, unfortunately for me.

GERALD. But I've a queer feeling that you have a permanent occasion to
be interested in me. I only half like it.

MRS. BARLOW. It's surprising how uninteresting you are, Gerald, for a
man of your years. I have not had occasion to listen outside a door, for
you, no, not for a great while, believe me.

GERALD. I believe you implicitly, darling. But do you happen to know
me through and through, and in and out, all my past and present doings,
mother? Have you a secret access to my room, and a spy-hole, and all
those things? This is uncomfortably thrilling. You take on a new lustre.

MRS. BARLOW. Your memoirs wouldn't make you famous, my son.

GERALD. Infamous, dear?

MRS. BARLOW. Good heavens, no! What a lot you expect from your very mild
sins! You and this young woman have lived together, then?

GERALD. Don't say "this young woman," mother dear--it's slightly vulgar.
It isn't for me to compromise Anabel by admitting such a thing, you
know.

MRS. BARLOW. Do you ask me to call her Anabel? I won't.

GERALD. Then say "this person," mother. It's more becoming.

MRS. BARLOW. I didn't come to speak to you, Gerald. I know you. I came
to speak to this young woman.

GERALD. "Person," mother.--Will you curtsey, Anabel? And I'll twist my
handkerchief. We shall make a Cruikshank drawing, if mother makes her
hair a little more slovenly.

MRS. BARLOW. You and Gerald were together for some time?

GERALD. Three years, off and on, mother.

MRS. BARLOW. And then you suddenly dropped my son, and went away?

GERALD. To Norway, mother--so I have gathered.

MRS. BARLOW. And now you have come back because that last one died?

GERALD. Is he dead, Anabel? How did he die?

ANABEL. He was killed on the ice.

GERALD. Oh, God!

MRS. BARLOW. Now, having had your fill of tragedy, you have come back to
be demure and to marry Gerald. Does he thank you?

GERALD. You must listen outsi