Enough to
live on?

LADY PEMBURY. For a bachelor, ample.

STRANGER. For a bachelor.

LADY PEMBURY. There's no one dependent on you?

STRANGER. Not a soul. Only got one relation living.

LADY PEMBURY. Oh?

STRANGER (enjoying a joke of his own). A father. But I shall not be
supporting _him_. Oh no. Far from it.

LADY PEMBURY (a little puzzled by this, though the is not going to
show it) Then I think you will be very rich with a thousand a year.

STRANGER. Yes, that's what _I_ thought. I should think it would stand
a thousand.

LADY PEMBURY. What is it? An invention of some sort?

STRANGER. Oh no, not an invention. . . . A discovery.

LADY PEMBURY. How proud she would have been!

STRANGER. Who?

LADY PEMBURY. Your wife if you had had one; your mother if she had
been alive.

STRANGER (violently). Look here, you leave my mother out of it. My
business is with Sir John---- (sneeringly) Sir John Pembury, K.B.E. If
I want to talk about my mother, he and I will have a nice little talk
together about her. Yes, and about my father, too.

(LADY PEMBURY understands at last. She stands up slowly, and looks at
him, horrified.)

LADY PEMBURY. What do you mean?

STRANGER. A thousand a year. You said so yourself. Yes, I think it's
worth a thousand a year.

LADY PEMBURY. Who is your father? What's your name?

STRANGER. Didn't I tell you I hadn't got a name? (Bitterly) And if you
want to know why, ask Sir John Pembury, K.B.E.

LADY PEMBURY (in a whisper). He's your father.

STRANGER. Yes. And I'm his loving son--come to see him at last, after
all these years.

LADY PEMBURY (hardly able to ask it). How--how old are you?

STRANGER. Thirty.

LADY PEMBURY (sitting down on the sofa). Oh, thank God! Thank God!

STRANGER (upset by her emotion). Look here, I didn't want all this. I
ask you--did I begin it? It was you who kept asking questions. I just
came for a quiet talk with Sir John--Father and Son talking together
quietly--talking about Son's allowance. A thousand a year. What did
you want to come into it for?

(LADY PEMBURY is quiet again now. She wipes away a tear or two, and
sits up, looking at him thoughtfully.)

LADY PEMBURY. So _you_ are the son that I never had.

STRANGER. What d'you mean?

LADY PEMBURY (almost to herself). The son whom I wanted so. Five
girls--never a boy. Let me look at you. (She goes up to him.)

STRANGER (edging away). Here, none of that.

LADY PEMBURY (looking at him earnes