PARAMORE (shortly, still pretending to read). That's my own business,
not yours.

CHARTERIS. Not at all: it's pre-eminently a social question. You're
going to get married, aren't you?

PARAMORE. Not that I am aware of.

CHARTERIS (alarmed). No! Don't say that. Why?

PARAMORE (rising angrily and rapping one of the SILENCE placards).
Allow me to call your attention to that. (He crosses to the easy chair
near the revolving bookstand, and flings himself into it with
determined hostility.)

CHARTERIS (following him, too deeply concerned to mind the rebuff).
Paramore: you alarm me more than I can say. You've been and muffed
this business somehow. I know perfectly well what you've been up to;
and I fully expected to find you a joyful accepted suitor.

PARAMORE (angrily). Yes, you have been watching me because you admire
Miss Craven yourself. Well, you may go in and win now. You will be
pleased to hear that I am a ruined man.

CHARTERIS. You! Ruined! How? The turf?

PARAMORE (contemptuously). The turf!! Certainly not.

CHARTERIS. Paramore: if the loan of all I possess will help you over