MAGGIE. You"ll miss the prettiest thing in the world, and all owing to me.
JOHN. What"s that?
MAGGIE. Romance.
JOHN. Poof.
MAGGIE. All"s cold and grey without it, John. They that have had it have slipped in and out of heaven.
JOHN. You"re exaggerating, Maggie.
MAGGIE. You"ve worked so hard, you"ve had none of the fun that comes to most men long before they"re your age.
JOHN. I never was one for fun. I cannot call to mind, Maggie, ever having laughed in my life.
MAGGIE. You have no sense of humour.
JOHN. Not a spark.
MAGGIE. I"ve sometimes thought that if you had, it might make you fonder of me. I think one needs a sense of humour to be fond of me.
JOHN. I remember reading of some one that said it needed a surgical operation to get a joke into a Scotsman"s head.
MAGGIE. Yes, that"s been said.
JOHN. What beats me, Maggie, is how you could insert a joke with an operation.
[He considers this and gives it up.]
MAGGIE. That"s not the kind of fun I was thinking of. I mean fun with the la.s.ses, John--gay, jolly, harmless fun. They could be impudent fashionable beauties now, stretching themselves to attract you, like that hiccoughing little devil, and running away from you, and crooking their fingers to you to run after them.
[He draws a big breath.]
JOHN. No, I never had that.
MAGGIE. It"s every man"s birthright, and you would have it now but for me.
JOHN. I can do without, Maggie.
MAGGIE. It"s like missing out all the Sat.u.r.days.
JOHN. You feel sure, I suppose, that an older man wouldn"t suit you better, Maggie?
MAGGIE. I couldn"t feel surer of anything. You"re just my ideal.
JOHN. Yes, yes. Well, that"s as it should be.
[She threatens him again.]
MAGGIE. David has the doc.u.ment. It"s carefully locked away.
JOHN. He would naturally take good care of it.
[The pride of the Wylies deserts her.]
MAGGIE. John, I make you a solemn promise that, in consideration of the circ.u.mstances of our marriage, if you should ever fall in love I"ll act differently from other wives.
JOHN. There will be no occasion, Maggie.
[Her voice becomes tremulous.]
MAGGIE. John, David doesn"t have the doc.u.ment. He thinks he has, but I have it here.
[Somewhat heavily JOHN surveys the fatal paper.]
JOHN. Well do I mind the look of it, Maggie. Yes, yes, that"s it. Umpha.
MAGGIE. You don"t ask why I"ve brought it.
JOHN. Why did you?
MAGGIE. Because I thought I might perhaps have the courage and the womanliness to give it back to you. [JOHN has a brief dream.] Will you never hold it up against me in the future that I couldn"t do that?
JOHN. I promise you, Maggie, I never will.
MAGGIE. To go back to The Pans and take up my old life there, when all these six years my eyes have been centred on this night! I"ve been waiting for this night as long as you have been; and now to go back there, and wizen and dry up, when I might be married to John Shand!
JOHN. And you will be, Maggie. You have my word.
MAGGIE. Never--never--never. [She tears up the doc.u.ment. He remains seated immovable, but the gleam returns to his eye. She rages first at herself and then at him.] I"m a fool, a fool, to let you go. I tell you, you"ll rue this day, for you need me, you"ll come to grief without me.
There"s n.o.body can help you as I could have helped you. I"m essential to your career, and you"re blind not to see it.
JOHN. What"s that, Maggie? In no circ.u.mstances would I allow any meddling with my career.
MAGGIE. You would never have known I was meddling with it. But that"s over. Don"t be in too great a hurry to marry, John. Have your fling with the beautiful dolls first. Get the whiphand of the haughty ones, John.
Give them their licks. Every time they hiccough let them have an extra slap in memory of me. And be sure to remember this, my man, that the one who marries you will find you out.
JOHN. Find me out?
MAGGIE. However careful a man is, his wife always finds out his failings.
JOHN. I don"t know, Maggie, to what failings you refer.
[The Cowcaddens Club has burst its walls, and is pouring this way to raise the new Member on its crest. The first wave hurls itself against the barber"s shop with cries of "Shand, Shand, Shand." For a moment, JOHN stems the torrent by planting his back against the door.]
You are acting under an impulse, Maggie, and I can"t take advantage of it. Think the matter over, and we"ll speak about it in the morning.
MAGGIE. No, I can"t go through it again. It ends to-night and now. Good luck, John.