(LADY LILLIAN and MILLICENT MONGER remove themselves to another part of the parlour, while the men conduct their business:)

MILLICENT It is kind of you to receive us on such short notice, Lady Lillian.

LADY LILLIAN Think nothing of it. It is no more than my duty as host, wherein kindness is a requisite, not a prerogative.

MILLICENT Still, I know it must be an imposition. Miles is prone to bringing home guests unannounced, as well. Especially when he's been drinking. I find it an intolerable inconvenience.

LADY LILLIAN If they were tolerable or convenient, we could hardly call them "men".

MILLICENT Ha ha! That's so. If I may say, Lady Lillian, it's a wonder the two of us have not grown closer friends, over the years, living only a yard apart.

LADY LILLIAN Well, it's a very large yard.

MILLICENT Yes, I'm winded just from the ride over. Still, one would think we ought to have so much in common. Your husband, for example.

LADY LILLIAN You don't mean to suggest that we share my husband?

MILLICENT No, of course not. However, I am a great fan of his work. And you... well, you married him.

LADY LILLIAN That's as much an antithesis as a commonality.

MILLICENT And then there's my husband.

LADY LILLIAN What of him?

MILLICENT Well, he and Lord Loveworthy are both of a sort, aren't they?

LADY LILLIAN They are uniquely themselves, if that's what you mean. And in that respect they are identical.

MILLICENT Ha ha! And, of course, we share many personal interests as well.

LADY LILLIAN For example?

MILLICENT We are both avid readers.

LADY LILLIAN There, you are mistaken. My husband being a writer, I have long since lost the will to read.

MILLICENT But you carry a book with you always. Indeed, LADY LILLIAN has a small book tucked under her arm even now.

LADY LILLIAN Oh, this is no book.

MILLICENT It bears an uncanny resemblance to one. In a superficial way.

LADY LILLIAN It is my diary.

MILLICENT A diary?

LADY LILLIAN A candid and confidential repository of all my most secret self-confessions.

MILLICENT Speaking of candor and confidence, I wonder if I might coax a kind of confession from you, myself?

LADY LILLIAN As you are my guest, Mrs. Monger, kindly coax away.

MILLICENT Why thank you, Lady Lillian, I appreciate that.

LADY LILLIAN My pleasure.

MILLICENT Then may I ask you in all bluntness...

LADY LILLIAN Yes, Mrs. Monger?

MILLICENT Why do you despise me?

LADY LILLIAN Oh, my dear Mrs. Monger, the question is absurd.

MILLICENT Is it?

LADY LILLIAN Of course.

MILLICENT I am delighted to hear it.

LADY LILLIAN If I truly despised you, as you seem to suspect I may have given you cause to believe, I would never admit to it, nor the reason for it.

MILLICENT Wouldn't you?

LADY LILLIAN Or course not, because, naturally, I would either assume that you already knew perfectly well wherein you had wronged me, or not knowing, that the torment of wondering would be a penance you richly deserved.

MILLICENT I see. Then you admit that you do despise me?

LADY LILLIAN Not in the least. My admission is merely conjectural. If I despised you, which, of course, I do not, it would be absurd of you to ask, for I would inevitably deny it, insisting instead that we were the best of friends. But as we are the best of friends, the question is absurder still as I do not despise you and I must therefore deny it all the more.

MILLICENT Well, that is a relief, I suppose.

LADY LILLIAN Of course it is.

MILLICENT Do you mind if we sit quietly awhile? I am unused to social discourse, and the effort of this conversation together with the constrictions of this corset have quite exhausted me.

LADY LILLIAN Certainly.

(They sit. MILLICENT opens her book and LADY LILLIAN her diary. They read and write, respectively.)