Part 9 (2/2)

[Elaine _shakes her head_.

_Ad_. What do you wish me to do? I must do either one or the other.

Shall I stay and go alternately, or shall we make a fresh start, without prejudice, as the lawyers say?

_El_. Oh, how heartlessly you talk! What do I care what the lawyers say? Can't you see how miserable I am, and how hollow everything seems all at once? I don't believe in any one, and I don't feel as if I knew anything, except that love is an inexplicable phenomenon of matter. I shall become an agnostic.

_Re-enter_ Lord _and_ Lady Gules.

_Lord G_. Well, have you two young people come to an understanding? Take my word for it, Elaine, an ounce of practice is worth a pound of theory in love-affairs, and be thankful if the man is willing to become your husband, who has had sufficient common-sense to teach you the lesson.

Holloa! whom have we here?

_Enter_ Charles _with cards_.

_Lord G_. [_reads_]. ”Dr and Mrs Plumper and Mr Flamm, to inquire for Lady Elaine Bendore.” Oho! our friend Plumper seems to know the difference between theory and practice at any rate, and is evidently anxious to extend the latter. [_To_ Charles.] Show them up.

_Ad_. I called upon the Plumpers this morning, and explained the whole affair to the entire satisfaction of the worthy couple.

[Adolphus _and_ Lady Elaine _whisper apart_.

_Lord G_. I have to thank you, Dr Plumper, for the timely a.s.sistance you rendered my daughter--first, in nearly sending her into a fit, and then in bringing her out of it; and am glad of this opportunity of expressing my sense of the obligation I am under to Mrs Plumper and Mr Flamm.

_Dr P_. Oh, don't mention it, my lord; I am sure I was only too gug-gug- glad to be of any a.s.sistance to Mr Gresham by being so like him as to frighten the young lady into a fif-fif-fit. And as for bringing her to--I always take the sal-volatile in my pup-pup-pup-pocket on Mrs Plumper's account.

_Ad_. And you'll accept me, Elaine, as your husband, even though I don't abandon my political aspirations, or introduce aesthetic principles into _Kindergartens_, or adopt the philosophy of Comte?

_El_. [_giving him her hand_]. Oh, Adolphus, you have convinced me that the loftiest of all aspirations, the purest of all principles, the supremest of all philosophies, is--

_Ad_. A-dod-dod-dolphus!

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