widows have a string of names down for their next.

MRS. JUNO. Well, what about the young girls?

GREGORY. Oh, who cares for young girls? They're sympathetic. They're
beginners. They don't attract me. I'm afraid of them.

MRS. JUNO. That's the correct thing to say to a woman of my age. But it
doesn't explain why you seem to have put your scruples in your pocket
when you met me.

GREGORY. Surely that's quite clear. I--

MRS. JUNO. No: please don't explain. I don't want to know. I take your
word for it. Besides, it doesn't matter now. Our voyage is over; and
to-morrow I start for the north to my poor father's place.

GREGORY [surprised]. Your poor father! I thought he was alive.

MRS. JUNO. So he is. What made you think he wasn't?

GREGORY. You said your POOR father.

MRS. JUNO. Oh, that's a trick of mine. Rather a silly trick, I Suppose;
but there's something pathetic to me about men: I find myself calling
them poor So-and-So when there's nothing whatever the matter with them.

GREGORY [who has listened in growing alarm]. But--I--is?-- wa--? Oh,
Lord!

MRS. JUNO. What's the matter?

GREGORY. Nothing.

MRS. JUNO. Nothing! [Rising anxiously]. Nonsense: you're ill.

GREGORY. No. It was something about your late husband--

MRS. JUNO. My LATE husband! What do you mean? [clutching him,
horror-stricken]. Don't tell me he's dead.

GREGORY [rising, equally appalled]. Don't tell me he's alive.

MRS. JUNO. Oh, don't frighten me like this. Of course he's
alive--unless you've heard anything.

GREGORY. The first day we met--on the boat--you spoke to me of your
poor dear husband.

MRS. JUNO [releasing him, quite reassured]. Is that all?

GREGORY. Well, afterwards you called him poor Tops. Always poor Tops,
Our poor dear Tops. What could I think?

MRS. JUNO [sitting down again]. I wish you hadn't given me such a shock
about him; for I haven't been treating him at all well. Neither have
you.

GREGORY [relapsing into his seat, overwhelmed]. And you mean to tell me
you're not a widow!

MRS. JUNO. Gracious, no! I'm not in black.

GREGORY. Then I have been behaving like a blackguard. I have broken my
promise to my mother. I shall never have an easy conscience again.

MRS. JUNO. I'm sorry. I thought you knew.

GREGORY. You thought I was a libertine?

MRS. JUNO. No: of course I shouldn't have spoken to you if I had
thought that. I thought you liked me, but that you knew, and would be
good.

GREGORY [stretc