Drummle. Drummle. It's true—this morning. The poor mother showed me his letter—a dozen curt words, and some of those ill-spelt. Misquith. Misquith. [Walking up to the fireplace.] I'm very sorry. Jayne. Jayne. Pardon my ignorance—who was Mabel Hervey? Drummle. Drummle. You don't——? Oh, of course not. Miss Hervey—Lady Orreyed, as she now is—was a lady who would have been, perhaps has been, described in the reports of the Police or the Divorce Court as an actress. Had she belonged to a lower stratum of our advanced civilisation she would, in the event of judicial inquiry, have defined her calling with equal justification as that of a dressmaker. To do her justice, she is a type of a class which is immortal. Physically, by the strange caprice of creation, curiously beautiful; mentally, she lacks even the strength of deliberate viciousness. Paint her portrait, it would symbolise a creature perfectly[15] patrician; lance a vein of her superbly-modelled arm, you would get the poorest vin ordinaire! Her affections, emotions, impulses, her very existence—a burlesque! Flaxen, five-and-twenty, and feebly frolicsome; anybody's, in less gentle society I should say everybody's, property! That, doctor, was Miss Hervey who is the new Lady Orreyed. Dost thou like the picture? [15] Misquith. Misquith. Very good, Cayley! Bravo!
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