Monsieur Duvallet: my mother. [Duvallet bows].
KNOX. A Frenchman! It only needed this.
MARGARET. [much annoyed] Father: do please be commonly civil to a
gentleman who has been of the greatest service to me. What will he
think of us?
DUVALLET. [debonair] But it's very natural. I understand Mr
Knox's feelings perfectly. [He speaks English better than Knox,
having learnt it on both sides of the Atlantic].
KNOX. If Ive made any mistake I'm ready to apologize. But I want to
know where my daughter has been for the last fortnight.
DUVALLET. She has been, I assure you, in a particularly safe place.
KNOX. Will you tell me what place? I can judge for myself how safe
it was.
MARGARET. Holloway Gaol. Was that safe enough?
KNOX AND MRS KNOX. Holloway Gaol!
KNOX. Youve joined the Suffragets!
MARGARET. No. I wish I had. I could have had the same experience in
better company. Please sit down, Monsieur Duvallet. [She sits
between the table and the sofa. Mrs Knox, overwhelmed, sits at the
other side of the table. Knox remains standing in the middle of the
room].
DUVALLET. [sitting down on the sofa] It was nothing. An
adventure. Nothing.
MARGARET. [obdurately] Drunk and assaulting the police! Forty
shillings or a month!
MRS KNOX. Margaret! Who accused you of such a thing?
MARGARET. The policeman I assaulted.
KNOX. You mean to say that you did it!
MARGARET. I did.
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