A small, but quite
noticeable, example of a scene thus rightly left to the imagination
occurred in Mr. Somerset Maugham's first play, _A Man of Honour_. In the
first act, Jack Halliwell, his wife, and his sister-in-law call upon his
friend Basil Kent. The sister-in-law, Hilda Murray, is a rich widow; and
she and Kent presently go out on the balcony together and are lost to
view. Then it appears, in a scene between the Halliwells, that they
fully believe that Kent is in love with Mrs. Murray and is now proposing
to her. But when the two re-enter from the balcony, it is evident from
their mien that, whatever may have passed between them, they are not
affianced lovers; and we presently learn that though Kent is in fact
strongly attracted to Mrs. Murray, he considers himself bound in honour
to marry a certain Jenny Bush, a Fleet Street barmaid, with whom he has
become entangled. Many playwrights would, so to speak, have dotted the
i's of the situation by giving us the scene between Kent and Mrs.
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