(There is a moment"s danger of the scene degenerating into something mid-Victorian. Fortunately a chivalrous man is present to lift it to a higher plane. JOHN PURDIE is one to whom subterfuge of any kind is abhorrent; if he has not spoken out before it is because of his reluctance to give MABEL pain. He speaks out now, and seldom probably has he proved himself more worthy.)
PURDIE. This is a man"s business. I must be open with you now, Mabel: it is the manlier way. If you wish it I shall always be true to you in word and deed; it is your right. But I cannot pretend that Joanna is not the one woman in the world for me. If I had met her before you--it"s Kismet, I suppose. (He swells.)
JOANNA (from a chair). Too late, too late.
MABEL (although the woman has seen him swell). I suppose you never knew what true love was till you met her, Jack?
PURDIE. You force me to say it. Joanna and I are as one person. We have not a thought at variance. We are one rather than two.
MABEL (looking at JOANNA). Yes, and that"s the one! (With the cheapest sarcasm.) I am so sorry to have marred your lives.
PURDIE. If any blame there is, it is all mine; she is as spotless as the driven snow. The moment I mentioned love to her she told me to desist.
MABEL. Not she.
JOANNA. So you were listening! (The obtuseness of MABEL is very strange to her.) Mabel, don"t you see how splendid he is!
MABEL. Not quite, Joanna.
(She goes away. She is really a better woman than this, but never capable of scaling that higher plane to which he has, as it were, offered her a hand.)
JOANNA. How lovely of you, Jack, to take it all upon yourself.
PURDIE (simply). It is the man"s privilege.
JOANNA. Mabel has such a horrid way of seeming to put people in the wrong.
PURDIE. Have you noticed that? Poor Mabel, it is not an enviable quality.
JOANNA (despondently). I don"t think I care to go out now. She has spoilt it all. She has taken the innocence out of it, Jack.
PURDIE (a rock). We must be brave and not mind her. Ah, Joanna, if we had met in time. If only I could begin again. To be battered for ever just because I once took the wrong turning, it isn"t fair.
JOANNA (emerging from his arms). The wrong turning! Now, who was saying that a moment ago--about himself? Why, it was Matey.
(A footstep is heard.)
PURDIE (for the first time losing patience with his wife). Is that her coming back again? It"s too bad.
(But the intruder is MRS. DEARTH, and he greets her with relief.)
Ah, it is you, Mrs. Dearth.
ALICE. Yes, it is; but thank you for telling me, Mr. Purdie. I don"t intrude, do I?
JOANNA (descending to the lower plane, on which even G.o.ddesses snap).
Why should you?
PURDIE. Rather not. We were--hoping it would be you. We want to start on the walk. I can"t think what has become of the others. We have been looking for them everywhere. (He glances vaguely round the room, as if they might so far have escaped detection.)
ALICE (pleasantly). Well, do go on looking; under that flower-pot would be a good place. It is my husband I am in search of.
PURDIE (who likes her best when they are in different rooms). Shall I rout him out for you?
ALICE. How too unutterably kind of you, Mr. Purdie. I hate to trouble you, but it would be the sort of service one never forgets.
PURDIE. You know, I believe you are chaffing me.
ALICE. No, no, I am incapable of that.
PURDIE. I won"t be a moment.
ALICE. Miss Trout and I will await your return with ill-concealed impatience.
(They await it across a table, the newcomer in a reverie and JOANNA watching her. Presently MRS. DEARTH looks up, and we may notice that she has an attractive screw of the mouth which denotes humour.)
Yes, I suppose you are right; I dare say I am.
JOANNA (puzzled). I didn"t say anything.
ALICE. I thought I heard you say "That hateful Dearth woman, coming b.u.t.ting in where she is not wanted."
(Joanna draws up her sveldt figure, but a screw of one mouth often calls for a similar demonstration from another, and both ladies smile. They nearly become friends.)
JOANNA. You certainly have good ears.
ALICE (drawling). Yes, they have always been rather admired.
JOANNA (snapping). By the painters for whom you sat when you were an artist"s model?
ALICE (measuring her). So that has leaked out, has it!
JOANNA (ashamed). I shouldn"t have said that.
ALICE (their brief friendship over). Do you think I care whether you know or not?
JOANNA (making an effort to be good). I"m sure you don"t. Still, it was cattish of me.
ALICE. It was.
JOANNA (in flame). I don"t see it.
(MRS. DEARTH laughs and forgets her, and with the entrance of a man from the dining room JOANNA drifts elsewhere. Not so much a man, this newcomer, as the relic of what has been a good one; it is the most he would ever claim for himself. Sometimes, brandy in hand, he has visions of the WILL DEARTH he used to be, clear of eye, sees him but a field away, singing at his easel or, fishing-rod in hand, leaping a stile. Our WILL stares after the fellow for quite a long time, so long that the two melt into the one who finishes LOB"s brandy. He is scarcely intoxicated as he appears before the lady of his choice, but he is shaky and has watery eyes.)
(ALICE has had a rather wild love for this man, or for that other one, and he for her, but somehow it has gone whistling down the wind. We may expect therefore to see them at their worst when in each other"s company.)
DEARTH (who is not without a humorous outlook on his own degradation).
I am uncommonly flattered, Alice, to hear that you have sent for me.