society? The mockery of it! Now that I've lost _her_, the one woman I
shall ever love, I don't care a rap for my footing in society;
[_walking away_] and anybody may have my baronetcy for tuppence!

SIR RANDLE.

[_Reprovingly._] My good friend----!

SIR TIMOTHY.

[_Turning to_ SIR RANDLE _and_ LADY FILSON.] And why not! The only
advantage of my baronetcy, it strikes me, is that I'm charged double
prices at every hotel I lay my head in, and am expected to shower gold
on the waiters. [_Sitting on the settee on the right and leaning his
head on his hand._] Oh, the mockery of it; the mockery of it!

SIR RANDLE.

[_Going to him._] If my profound sympathy--and Lady Filson's--[_to_
LADY FILSON] I may speak for you, Winnie----?

LADY FILSON.

Certainly.

SIR RANDLE.

[_To_ SIR TIMOTHY.] If our profound sympathy is the smallest consolation
to you----

SIR TIMOTHY.

[_Emphatically, raising his head._] It is _not_. [_With a despairing
gesture._] I'm broken-hearted, Sir Randle. That's what I am; I'm
broken-hearted.

LADY FILSON.

[_Sitting in the low-backed arm-chair on the left._] Oh, dear!

SIR TIMOTHY.

[_Sighing._] If I'd had the pluck to declare myself sooner, it might
have been different. [_Staring before him._] From the moment I first
set eyes on her, at the dinner-party you gave to welcome her on her
arrival in London--from that moment I was captured completely, body and
soul. The sight of her as she stood in the drawing-room beside her
mother, with her pretty, white face and her elegant figure, and a gown
clinging to her that looked as though she'd been born in it--'twill
never fade from me if I live to be as old as a dozen Methuselahs!

SIR RANDLE.

[_Pryingly._] Er--has Ottoline--I have no desire to probe an open
wound--has she assigned any--reason----?

SIR TIMOTHY.

[_Rousing himself._] For rejecting me?

SIR RANDLE.

[_With a wave of the hand._] For----

LADY FILSON.

For not seeing her way clear----

SIR RANDLE.

To--er--in short--accept you?

SIR TIMOTHY.

She _has_.