DELIA. Well, mummy, aren't you glad to see me?
BELINDA. My darling child!
DELIA. Say you're glad.
BELINDA (sitting up). My darling, I'm absolutely—(DELIA crosses round to L. of hammock.) Hold the hammock while I get out, dear; we don't want an accident. (DELIA holds the L. end of it and BELINDA struggles out, leaving the magazine and her handkerchief in the hammock.) They're all right when you're there, and they'll bear two tons, but they're horrid getting in and out of. (Kissing her again.) Darling, it really is you?
DELIA. Oh, it is jolly seeing you again. I believe you were asleep.
BELINDA (with dignity). Certainly not, child. I was reading The Nineteenth Century—(with an air)—and after. (Earnestly) Darling, wasn't it next Thursday you were coming back?
DELIA. No, this Thursday, silly.
BELINDA (penitently). Oh, my darling, and I was going over to Paris to bring you home.
DELIA. I half expected you.
BELINDA. So confusing their both being called Thursday. And you were leaving school for the very last time. If you don't forgive me, Delia, I shall cry.
DELIA (kissing her and stroking her hand fondly). Silly mother!
(BELINDA sits down in the deck–chair and DELIA sits on the table.)
BELINDA. Isn't it a lovely day for April, darling! I've wanted to say that to somebody all day, and you're the first person who's given me the chance. Oh, I said it to Betty, but she only said, "Yes, ma'am."
DELIA. Poor mother!
BELINDA (jumping up suddenly, crossing to L. of and kissing DELIA again). I simply must have another one. And to think that you're never going back to school any more. (Looking at her fondly, and backing to L.) Darling, you are looking pretty.
DELIA. Am I?
BELINDA. Lovely. (She kisses her once more, then she takes the cushion from the hammock, moves at back of table and places it on the head of the deck–chair.) And now you're going to stay with me for just as long as you want a mother. (Anxiously moving to R. of deckchair.) Darling, you didn't mind being sent away to school, did you? It is the usual thing, you know.
DELIA. Silly mother! of course it is.
BELINDA (relieved, and sitting on deck–chair). I'm so glad you think so too.
DELIA. Have you been very lonely without me?
BELINDA (with a sly look at DELIA). Very.
DELIA (turning to BELINDA and holding up a finger). The truth, mummy!
BELINDA. I've missed you horribly, Delia. (Primly.) The absence of female companionship of the requisite—
DELIA. Are you really all alone?
BELINDA (smiling mysteriously and coyly). Well, not always, of course.
DELIA (excitedly, at she slips off the table, and backing to L. a little). Mummy, I believe you're being bad again.
BELINDA. Really, darling, you forget that I'm old enough to be—in fact, am—your mother.
DELIA (nodding her head). You are being bad.
BELINDA (rising with dignity and drawing herself up to her full height, moving L.). My child, that is not the way to—Oh, I say, what a lot taller I am than you! (Turning her back to DELIA and comparing sizes.)
DELIA. And prettier.
BELINDA (playfully rubbing noses with DELIA). Oh, do you think so? (Firmly, but pleased.) Don't be silly, child.
DELIA (holding up a finger). Now tell me all that's been happening here at once.
BELINDA (with a sigh). And I was just going to ask you how you were getting on with your French. (Sits in deck–chair.)
DELIA. Bother French! You've been having a much more interesting time than I have, so you've got to tell.
BELINDA (with a happy sigh). O–oh! (She sinks back into her chair.)
DELIA (taking off her coat). Is it like the Count at Scarborough?
BELINDA (surprised and pained). My darling, what do you mean?
DELIA. Don't you remember the Count who kept proposing to you at Scarborough? I do. (Places coat on hammock.)
BELINDA (reproachfully). Dear one, you were the merest child, paddling about on the beach and digging castles.
DELIA (smiling to herself). I was old enough to notice the Count.
BELINDA (sadly). And I'd bought her a perfectly new spade! How one deceives oneself!
DELIA (at table and leaning across, with hands on table). And then there was the M.P. who proposed at Windermere.
BELINDA. Yes, dear, but it wasn't seconded—I mean he never got very far with it.
DELIA. And the artist in Wales.
BELINDA. Darling child, what a memory you have. No wonder your teachers are pleased with you.
DELIA (settling herself comfortably in deck–chair L. of BELINDA and lying in her arms). Now tell me all about this one.
BELINDA (meekly). Which one?
DELIA (excitedly). Oh, are there lots?
BELINDA (severely). Only two.
DELIA. Two! You abandoned woman!
BELINDA. It's something in the air, darling. I've never been in Devonshire in April before.
DELIA. Is it really serious this time?
BELINDA (pained). I wish you wouldn't say this time, Delia. It sounds so unromantic. If you'd only put it into French—cette fois—it sounds so much better. Cette fois. (Parentally.) When one's daughter has just returned from an expensive schooling in Paris, one likes to feel―–
DELIA. What I meant, dear, was, am I to have a stepfather at last?
BELINDA. Now you're being too French, darling.
DELIA. Why, do you still think father may be alive?
BELINDA. Why not? It's only eighteen years since he left us, and he was quite a young man then.
DELIA. Yes, but surely, surely you'd have heard from him in all those years, if he'd been alive?
BELINDA. Well, he hasn't heard from me, and I'm still alive.
DELIA (looking earnestly at her mother, rises and moves L.C.). I shall never understand it.
BELINDA. Understand what?
DELIA. Were you as heavenly when you were young as you are now?
BELINDA (rapturously). Oh, I was sweet!
DELIA. And yet he left you after only six months.
BELINDA (rather crossly, sitting up). I wish you wouldn't keep on saying he left me. I left him too.
DELIA (running to and kneeling in front of BELINDA and looking anxiously into her face). Why?