ENGLISHWOMAN Are you writing a poem about India, Flora?

FLORA Trying to!

ENGLISHMAN Kipling—there’s a poet! ‘Though I’ve belted you and flayed you, by the living Gawd that made you, you’re a better man than I am Gunga Din!’

ENGLISHWOMAN Gerald, you’re showing us up. Flora writes modern poetry, don’t you, dear, not the sort people can remember.

FLORA Oh, but I like all kinds.

RESIDENT The only poet I know is Alfred Housman. I expect you’ve come across him.

FLORA (Pleased) Oh yes, indeed I have!

RESIDENT A dry old stick, isn’t he?

FLORA Oh—come across him—

RESIDENT He hauled me though ‘Ars Amatoria’ when I was up at Trinity.

FLORA (Pleased) Oh, yes—the Art of Love!

RESIDENT When it comes to love, Housman said, you’re either an Ovid man or a Virgil man—omnia vincit amor et nos cedamus amori—you can’t win against love; we give in to it. That’s Virgil. Housman was an Ovid man—et mihi cedet amor—’Love won’t win against me!’

FLORA I’m a Virgil man.

RESIDENT Are you? Well, you make friends more quickly that way.

ENGLISHWOMAN Will you be here for the Queen’s Ball, Flora?

FLORA The … ?

ENGLISHWOMAN It comes off next month, Queen Victoria’s birthday, and there’s the gymkhana!

FLORA Oh … I can’t, I’m afraid. I’ll be going up the country soon; is that the expression?

RESIDENT Of course, you’re here on doctor’s orders, I believe.

FLORA Why … yes …

RESIDENT If there’s anything you need or want you tell David—right, David?

DURANCE Yes, sir.

FLORA Thank you. He’s already promised me a go in the Daimler.

DURANCE (Embarrassed) Oh … Flora’s keen on autos.

ENGLISHWOMAN If you like cars, His Highness has got about eighty-six of them. Collects them like stamps.

FLORA His Highness?

ENGLISHMAN The Rajah of Jummapur. The collectingness is terrific.

Another record begins to play.

RESIDENT Well, don’t let us stop you enjoying yourselves.

DURANCE Would you like to dance, Flora?

FLORA I’m out of puff”. Do you think there might be more air outside?

DURANCE On the verandah? Any air that’s going. Should we take a peg with us?

… The Kipling fan, unseen, is singing:

ENGLISHMAN ‘On the road to Mandalay

Where the flyin’ fishes play,

An’ the dawn come up like thunder outer China crost the Bay!’

The dancers disperse.

Dilip, now smartly dressed in a jacket and tie, enters the verandah from within, in something of a hurry, carrying a jacket and a tie. The jacket is a faded beige gabardine with metal buttons, the skimpy jacket of a servant. On the breast, however, not instantly apparent, is a short strip of grimy campaign ribbons.

DILIP Here I am at last!—I am so sorry, my fault entirely for not thinking to mention—but, look—all will be well in a jiffy!—and I have terrifically good news.

PIKE (Getting up) Thank you, Dilip—what … ?

DILIP (Helping him on with the jacket, which is too small for Pike) Put it on and I will tell you. The jacket is a miserable garment, and our benefactor, I’m afraid, isn’t quite your size.