First a Girl

[pointing to male dressing room]

Elizabeth:
[to Victor] Listen - I've put your trousers on, but I'm not going to take them off in *there*!

Victor:
[He leans towards her as they sit on the bed] You've given me an idea.

Elizabeth:
[nervously] Have I?

Victor:
[leans closer] You can do something for me.

Elizabeth:
[looking apprehensive] Can I?

Victor:
[eagerly] Take off those pyjamas.

Elizabeth:
[appalled] *What*?

Victor:
Put this on!

[he produces a slinky dress and high-heeled boots and sits down with his back turned]

Victor:
Now I tell you what we'll do...

Elizabeth:
[affronted] Thanks very much!

Victor:
You want to be an actress, don't you? You want a chance to show what you can do...

[her eyes begin to shine as she finally understands]

Victor:
...you've got it. You're going to take my place at Cruft's Music Hall tonight!

Elizabeth:
I'm not going. I can't do it.

Victor:
Do what?

Elizabeth:
I can't be a man all my life!

Victor:
But you'll have time off. And you can knit and knit to your heart's content...

Elizabeth:
But think what you're asking me!

Victor:
[gazes upward as he quotes] "There's a tide in the affairs of men" - [descending temporarily to earth] - and women - "if taken at the flood, leads on to fortune..."

Elizabeth:
Tides go out - don't they?

Victor:
This'll be a spring one! [Takes her by the shoulders] We'll carry everything before us. I'll never leave you - and I'll never let you down.

[They shake hands on it as a smile spreads from her face to his]

Victor:
[to Robert] You have an unclean mind.

Victor:
I've been father, mother, sister and brother to that girl - and nothing more.

Princess Mironoff:
[watching 'Bill' on stage] Isn't he marvelous?

Robert:
[absently] Adorable...

Princess Mironoff:
*What*?

Robert:
[hastily] Er... marvelous.

Elizabeth:
[Of Victor, who is busy dancing with Robert's fianc?e] He's quite harmless - he's Shakespearing her to death.

Victor:
[to 'Bill', about Princess Mironoff] She doesn't know you. Smile!

[Bill smiles awkwardly at the Princess, Victor does so with broad masculine appreciation]

Victor:
[aside] Not like *that*. A he-man smile; she's beautiful!

[Bill catches sight of the handsome Robert and her smile widens]

Victor:
[acidly] I said the Princess, not the Prince...

Robert:
[calculatingly] We have dinner late and then decide to motor on. The car will conveniently break down - there.

Princess Mironoff:
That's original!

Robert:
We... we then, walk, three kilometres.

Princess Mironoff:
Now don't get too original, darling.

Robert:
Well, what's three kilometres on a nice moonlight night? At the end of that walk, by chance, we will arrive at an inn, which, by a strange coincidence I know well. I shall telephone the "patron" and make some interesting reservations.