QUEX.
My palm--?
SOPHY.
By this extraordinary palmist everybody is talking about--Valma.
QUEX.
[_Pleasantly._] One of these fortune-telling fellows, eh? [_Shaking his
head._] I prefer the gipsy on Epsom race-course.
SOPHY.
[_Under her breath._] Oh, indeed! [_Curtly._] Please take a seat.
[_She flounces up to the desk and busies herself there vindictively._
FRAYNE.
[_To_ QUEX.] Who's that gal? what's her name?
QUEX.
Fullgarney; a protegee of the Edens. Her father was bailiff to old Mr.
Eden, at their place in Norfolk.
FRAYNE.
Rather alluring--eh, what?
QUEX.
[_Wincing._] Don't, Chick!
FRAYNE.
My dear Harry, it is perfectly proper, now that you are affianced to
Miss Eden, and have reformed all that sort of thing--it is perfectly
proper that you should no longer observe pretty women too narrowly.
QUEX.
Obviously.
FRAYNE.
But do bear in mind that your old friend is not so pledged. Recollect
that _I_ have been stuck for the last eight years, with intervals of
leave, on the West Coast of Africa, nursing malaria--
QUEX
[_Severely.
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