(Exeunt. Enter ALEC and CECELIA.) CECELIA: Just my luck to get my own brother for an intermission.
ALEC: (Gloomily) I'll go if you want me to.
CECELIA: Good heavens, no--with whom would I begin the next dance? (Sighs.) There's no color in a dance since the French officers went back.
ALEC: (Thoughtfully) I don't want Amory to fall in love with Rosalind.
CECELIA: Why, I had an idea that that was just what you did want.
ALEC: I did, but since seeing these girls--I don't know. I'm awfully attached to Amory. He's sensitive and I don't want him to break his heart over somebody who doesn't care about him.
CECELIA: He's very good looking.
ALEC: (Still thoughtfully) She won't marry him, but a girl doesn't have to marry a man to break his heart.
CECELIA: What does it? I wish I knew the secret.
ALEC: Why, you cold-blooded little kitty. It's lucky for some that the Lord gave you a pug nose.
(Enter MRS. CONNAGE.) MRS. CONNAGE: Where on earth is Rosalind?
ALEC: (Brilliantly) Of course you've come to the best people to find out. She'd naturally be with us.
MRS. CONNAGE: Her father has marshalled eight bachelor millionaires to meet her.
ALEC: You might form a squad and march through the halls.
MRS. CONNAGE: I'm perfectly serious--for all I know she may be at the Cocoanut Grove with some football player on the night of her debut. You look left and I'll-ALEC: (Flippantly) Hadn't you better send the butler through the cellar?
MRS. CONNAGE: (Perfectly serious) Oh, you don't think she'd be there?
CECELIA: He's only joking, mother.
ALEC: Mother had a picture of her tapping a keg of beer with some high hurdler.
MRS. CONNAGE: Let's look right away.
(They go out. ROSALIND comes in with GILLESPIE.) GILLESPIE: Rosalind--Once more I ask you. Don't you care a blessed thing about me?
(AMORY walks in briskly.) AMORY: My dance.
ROSALIND: Mr. Gillespie, this is Mr. Blaine.
GILLESPIE: I've met Mr. Blaine. From Lake Geneva, aren't you?
AMORY: Yes.
GILLESPIE: (Desperately) I've been there. It's in the--the Middle West, isn't it?
AMORY: (Spicily) Approximately. But I always felt that I'd rather be provincial hot-tamale than soup without seasoning.
GILLESPIE: What!
AMORY: Oh, no offense.
(GILLESPIE bows and leaves.) ROSALIND: He's too much people.
AMORY: I was in love with a people once.
ROSALIND: So?
AMORY: Oh, yes--her name was Isabelle--nothing at all to her except what I read into her.
ROSALIND: What happened?
AMORY: Finally I convinced her that she was smarter than I was--then she threw me over. Said I was critical and impractical, you know.
ROSALIND: What do you mean impractical?