A Proper Introduction
Format: Period-style two-hander
Approx. length: 1-3 minutes
Original audition scene

INT. DRAWING ROOM - AFTERNOON, 1891

MISS ADA WREN studies a folded letter. MR. HARTLEY enters.

HARTLEY
Miss Wren. Your aunt informed me I might find you here.

ADA
How resourceful of her. I had hoped to be lost among the upholstery.

HARTLEY
Then I apologise for discovering you.

ADA
Discovery is not always an offence. Sometimes it is merely poor timing.

HARTLEY
I have come to explain myself.

ADA
A gentleman explaining himself is usually preparing to become less gentlemanly.

HARTLEY
The letter was not intended for public reading.

ADA
Yet it was read publicly, at breakfast, between kidneys and marmalade.

HARTLEY
Your uncle took it from my coat.

ADA
My uncle takes many things from coats. Cigars, opinions, occasionally money. It does not absolve the contents.

HARTLEY
Then you believe I wrote unfairly of you.

ADA
You wrote that I possess “a sharp intelligence, dangerously unaccompanied by obedience.”

HARTLEY
I meant it as praise.

ADA
How fortunate. I have decided to receive it as such.

HARTLEY
You have?

ADA
Yes. Though next time you admire me, Mr. Hartley, kindly do so with better security.
