FullReads

ISABEL.
Then he lied….

MRS. FALCINGTON.
Oh, yes–of course. He just can’t help it.
Any more than he can help making love—-

ISABEL.
You mean this is not the first—-

MRS. FALCINGTON.
In the seven years of our marriage,
he has made love to every pretty woman he came across.

ISABEL.
( sharply )

Why did you stand for it?

MRS. FALCINGTON.
Because I was a fool. And because he is a child.

ISABEL.
( almost pleadingly )

He can write poetry, can’t he?

MRS. FALCINGTON.
Yes. Yes! Oh, yes!

ISABEL.
Then–I suppose–it’s all right.
But I’m angry at myself, just the same, for being taken in.

MRS. FALCINGTON.
It’s strange…. You feel humiliated at having been made a fool of for seven days. I’ve been made a fool of for seven years, and I’ve never realized that I had a right to feel ashamed.

ISABEL.
That’s the difference between Greenwich Village and Evanston, Illinois.

MRS. FALCINGTON.
Yes. But when I go back I shall lose the sense of it. I’ll think I’m an injured woman because he was unfaithful to me, or because he brought scandal upon the family, or something like that. Now I realize that it’s none of those things. It’s–it’s just an offence against–my human dignity. I’ve been treated like–like an inferior. But why shouldn’t I be treated like an inferior? I am an inferior. When I go back to Evanston, and take up grass-widowhood and the burden of living down the family scandal, and sit and twiddle my thumbs in a big house, and have my maiden aunt come to live with me—-

ISABEL.
But why should you do that?
If that’s what it means to go back to Evanston, don’t go! Stay here!

MRS. FALCINGTON.
But–what could I do?

ISABEL.
Do? Why–why–go on the stage!

MRS. FALCINGTON.
( rising )

Are you in earnest?

ISABEL.
Look here. You’ve a good voice, and you’re intelligent. That’s enough to start with. I don’t know whether you can act or not–but you’ll find out. And if you can’t act, you’ll do something else. Your people will stake you?–give you an allowance, I mean?

MRS. FALCINGTON.
To go on the stage with? Never.
But I’ve a small income of my own.
Only about a hundred a month. Would that do?

ISABEL.
Do? Yes, that will do very well!
And now it’s my turn to ask you–are you in earnest? Because I am.

MRS. FALCINGTON.
You are the first human being who even suggested to me that I could do anything. I’ve wanted to do something, but I couldn’t even think of it as possible. It wasn’t possible in Evanston. And as for acting, I kept that dream fast locked at the very bottom of my heart, for fear if I brought it out it would be shattered by polite laughter–

ISABEL.
You’ll have to expose that dream to worse
things than polite laughter, my dear.

MRS. FALCINGTON.
I can, now. It won’t get hurt. I’m free now to take care of my dream–to fight for it–to mike it come true. You have set me free.–I’m going to go and get a room– now !

ISABEL.
Let me go with you and help you find one!

MRS. FALCINGTON.
And to-morrow–

ISABEL.
To-morrow–

Harold enters. He stops short in the doorway, and drops the brioches. He looks at one woman, then at the other. Suddenly he goes between them with arms outspread as though to keep the peace.

HAROLD.
No! no! I am not worthy of either of you!

( They stare at him, bewildered. He goes on )
–Why should you struggle over me? Do not hate each other! For my sake, be friends! Ah, God, that this tragic meeting should have happened! And now I must decide between you….

( He goes to Mrs. Falcington and throws

himself on his knees before her.)
Forgive and forget! Come back with me to Evanston!

MRS. FALCINGTON
( over his head to Isabel )

The perfect egotist!

The curtain falls, and then rises again for a moment.

Harold is now on his knees to Isabel.

HAROLD.
Marry me!

ISABEL.
Harold! You have not been all this
time getting brioches. I smell–heliotrope!

The curtain rises and falls several times, showing Harold on his knees alternately to the two women, who look at each other above his head, paying no attention to him.