He does not know that she knows Rook or
Pennycuick, and she does not know that he knows them. Arriving in
England, she finds in the manager, the promoter, and the chairman of the
Electric White Lead Company her guardian, her seducer, and her lover.
When she comes to see her guardian, the first person she meets is her
seducer, and she learns that her lover has just left the house. Up to
that moment, I repeat, she did not know that any one of these men knew
any other; yet she does not even say, "How small the world is!"[4]
Surely some such observation was obligatory under the circumstances.
Let us turn now to a more memorable piece of work; that interesting play
of Sir Arthur Pinero's transition period, _The Profligate_. Here the
great situation of the third act is brought about by a chain of
coincidences which would be utterly unthinkable in the author's maturer
work. Leslie Brudenell, the heroine, is the ward of Mr. Cheal, a
solicitor. She is to be married to Dunstan Renshaw; and, as she has no
home, the bridal party meets at Mr.
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