CHARTERIS (calling to the page). Dr. Paramore is in the dining room.

PAGE BOY. Thank you, sir. (He is about to go into the dining room when
Sylvia swoops on him.)

SYLVIA. Here: where are you taking that paper? It belongs to this
room.

PAGE BOY. It's Dr. Paramore's particular orders, miss. The British
Medical Journal has always to be brought to him dreckly it comes.

SYLVIA. What cheek? Charteris: oughtn't we to stop this on principle?

CHARTERIS. Certainly not. Principle's the poorest reason I know for
making yourself nasty.

SYLVIA. Bosh! Ibsen!

CHARTERIS (to the page). Off with you, my boy: Dr. Paramore's waiting
breathless with expectation.

PAGE BOY (seriously). Indeed, sir. (He hurries off.)

CHARTERIS. That boy will make his way in this country. He has no sense
of humour. (Grace comes in. Her dress, very convenient and
businesslike, is made to please herself and serve her own purposes
without the slightest regard to fashion, though by no means without a
careful concern for her personal elegance. She enters briskly, like an
habitually busy woman.)