here are
two Krooboys waiting to carry the portmanteau. You will: I know you
will. (She edges him to the door.) And do you think there is time to get
him shaved?

RANKIN (succumbing, half bewildered). I'll do my best.

LADY CICELY. I know you will. (As he is going out) Oh! one word, Mr.
Rankin. (He comes back.) The Cadi didn't know that Captain Brassbound
was Sir Howard's nephew, did he?

RANKIN. No.

LADY CICELY. Then he must have misunderstood everything quite
dreadfully. I'm afraid, Mr. Rankin--though you know best, of
course--that we are bound not to repeat anything at the inquiry that the
Cadi said. He didn't know, you see.

RANKIN (cannily). I take your point, Leddy Ceecily. It alters the case.
I shall certainly make no allusion to it.

LADY CICELY (magnanimously). Well, then, I won't either. There! They
shake hands on it. Sir Howard comes in.

SIR HOWARD. Good morning Mr. Rankin. I hope you got home safely from the
yacht last night.

RANKIN. Quite safe, thank ye, Sir Howrrd.

LADY CICELY. Howard, he's in a hurry. Don't make him stop to talk.

SIR HOWARD. Very good, very good. (He comes to the table and takes Lady
Cicely's chair.)

RANKIN. Oo revoir, Leddy Ceecily.

LADY CICELY. Bless you, Mr. Rankin. (Rankin goes out. She comes to
the other end of the table, looking at Sir Howard with a troubled,
sorrowfully sympathetic air, but unconsciously making her right hand
stalk about the table on the tips of its fingers in a tentative stealthy
way which would put Sir Howard on his guard if he were in a suspicious
frame of mind, which, as it happens, he is not.) I'm so sorry for you,
Howard, about this unfortunate inquiry.

SIR HOWARD (swinging round on his chair, astonished). Sorry for ME! Why?

LADY CICELY. It will look so dreadful. Your own nephew, you know.

SIR HOWARD. Cicely: an English judge has no nephews, no sons even, when
he has to carry out the law.

LADY CICELY. But then he oughtn't to have any property either. People
will never understand about the West Indian Estate. They'll think you're
the wicked uncle out of the Babes in the Wood. (With a fresh gush of
compassion) I'm so SO sorry for you.

SIR HOWARD (rather stiffly). I really do not see how I need your
commiseration, Cicely. The woman was an impossible person, half mad,
half drunk. Do you understand what such a creature is when she has a
grievance, and imagines some innocent person to be the author of it?

LADY CICELY (with a tou