MORLEY. Angel!
MRS. G. Does that mean that you don't want it?
MORLEY. Oh, no! It will be very good discipline for me; made by you, I
shall have to wear it.
MRS. G. But you know, it's a very remarkable thing that I _can_ offer
it you. Ever since we married I have been knitting comforters for Mr.
Gladstone, which he has always either been losing or giving away. This is
the first time I have been able to get ahead of him. He still has two.
Isn't that a triumph?
MORLEY. It is, indeed.
MRS. G. He's more careful now, and doesn't lose them. He begins to feel, I
suppose, that he's getting old--and needs them.
MORLEY. You surprise me! Why, he is not yet ninety!
MRS. G. Do you know, he still sleeps like a child! Sometimes I lie awake
to watch him. It's wonderful.
MORLEY. It's habit, madam; that, and force of will.
MRS. G. And really it is only then I can feel that he quite belongs to me.
All the rest of the time it's a struggle.
MORLEY. In which you have won.
MRS. G. Have I?
MORLEY. Every time.
MRS. G. (_wistfully_). Do I, Mr. Morley?
MORLEY. It is you, more than anything, who have kept him young.
MRS. G. Oh, no! I'm the ageing influence.
MORLEY. I don't believe it.
MRS. G. Yes; I stand for caution, prudence. He's like a great boy.... You
don't think so; you see the other side of his character. But here have I
been, sixty years, trying to make him take advice!
MORLEY. And sometimes succeeding.
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