RWOOD) That will make the room
nice and warm for you by the time you've finished. (He goes to the
door and says again) Five minutes.

(There is an awkward silence after he is gone. KATE waits for NORWOOD
to say something, but NORWOOD doesn't know in the least what is
expected of him.)

NORWOOD (looking anxiously at the door). What's the fellow's game, eh?

KATE. Game?

NORWOOD. Yes. What's he up to?

KATE. Is he up to anything?

NORWOOD. I don't like it. Why the devil did he choose to-day to come
back? If he'd waited another week, we'd have been safely away
together. What's his game, I wonder?

(He walks up and down, worrying it out.)

KATE. I don't think he's playing a game. He's just giving me my
chance.

NORWOOD. What chance?

KATE. A chance to decide between you.

NORWOOD. You've decided that, Kate. You've had a year to think about
it in, and you've decided. We love each other; you're coming away with
me; that's all settled. Only . . . what the deuce is he up to?

KATE (sitting down and talking to herself). You're quite right about
my not knowing him. . . . How one rushed into marriage in those early
days of the war--knowing nothing about each other. And then they come
back, and even the little one thought one did know is different. . . . I
suppose he feels the same about me.

NORWOOD (to himself). Damn him!

KATE (after a pause). Well, Cyril?

NORWOOD (looking sharply round at her). Well?

KATE. We haven't got very long.

NORWOOD (looking at his watch). He really means to come back--in five
minutes?

KATE. You heard him say so.

NORWOOD (going up to her and speaking eagerly). What's the matter with
slipping out now? You've got a hat here. We can slip out quietly. He
won't hear us. He'll come back and find us gone--well, what can he do?
Probably he'll hang about for a bit and then go to his club. We'll
have a bit of dinner; ring up your maid; get her to meet you with some
things, and go off by the night mail. Scotland--anywhere you like. Let
the whole business simmer down a bit. We don't want any melodramatic
eighteenth-century nonsense.

KATE. Go out now, and not wait for him to have _his_ five minutes?

NORWOOD (impatiently). What does he _want_ with five minutes? What's
the _good_ of it to him? Just to take a pathetic farewell of you, and
pretend that you've ruined his life, when all the time he's chuckling
in his sleeve at having got rid of you so easily. _I_ know these young
fellow