ALGERNON: Cecily, mayn’t I come in to lunch?

CECILY: I wonder you can look me in the face after your conduct.

ALGERNON: I love looking you in the face.

CECILY: But why did you try to put your horrid bill on poor Uncle Jack? I think that was inexcusable of you.

ALGERNON: I know it was; but the fact is I have a most wretched memory. I quite forgot I owed the Savoy £762 14s. 2d.

CECILY: Well, I admit I am glad to hear that you have a bad memory. Good memories are not a quality that women admire much in men.

ALGERNON: Cecily, I am fearfully hungry.

CECILY: I can’t understand your being so hungry, considering all you have had to eat since last October.

ALGERNON: Oh! Those suppers were for poor Bunbury. Late suppers are the only things his doctor allows him to eat.

CECILY: Well, I don’t wonder then that Mr. Bunbury is always so ill, if he eats suppers for six or eight people every night of the week.

ALGERNON: That is what I always tell him. But he seems to think his doctors know best. He’s perfectly silly about doctors.

CECILY: Of course I don’t want you to starve, so I have told the butler to send you out some lunch.

ALGERNON: Cecily, what a perfect angel you are! May I not see you again before I go?

CECILY: Miss Prism and I will be here after lunch. I always have my afternoon noon lessons under the yew-tree.

ALGERNON: Can’t you invent something to get Miss Prism out of the way?

CECILY: Do you mean invent a falsehood?

ALGERNON: Oh! Not a falsehood, of course. Simply something that is not quite true, but should be.

CECILY: I am afraid I couldn’t possibly do that. I shouldn’t know how. People never think of cultivating a young girl’s imagination. It is the great defect of modern education. Of course, if you happened to mention that dear Dr. Chasuble was waiting somewhere to see Miss Prism, she would certainly go to meet him. She never likes to keep him waiting. And she has so few opportunities of doing so.

ALGERNON: What a capital suggestion!

CECILY: I didn’t suggest anything, Cousin Ernest. Nothing would induce me to deceive Miss Prism in the smallest detail. I merely pointed out that if you adopted a certain line of conduct, a certain result would follow.

ALGERNON: Of course. I beg your pardon, Cousin Cecily. Then I shall come here at half-past three. I have something very serious to say to you.

CECILY: Serious?

ALGERNON: Yes: very serious.

CECILY: In that case I think we had better meet in the house. I don’t like talking seriously in the open air. It looks so artificial.

ALGERNON: Then where shall we meet?

Enter JACK.

JACK: The dog-cart is at the door. You have got to go. Your place is by Bunbury. (Sees Cecily.) Cecily! Don’t you think, Cecily, that you had better return to Miss Prism and Dr. Chasuble?