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Sweet-And-Twenty: A Comedy
by
HE.
Really!
SHE.
Yes. This orchard, it seems, was here before the house was. It was part of an old farm where he and she–the unhappy lovers, you know– stopped one day, while they were out driving, and asked for something to eat. The farmer’s wife was busy, but she gave them each a glass of milk, and told them they could eat all the cherries they wanted. So they picked a hatful of cherries, and ate them, sitting on a bench like this one. And then he fell in love with her. . . .
HE.
And . . . didn’t tell her so. . . .
She glances at him in alarm. His self-possession has vanished. He is pale and frightened, but there is a desperate look in his eyes, as if some unknown power were forcing him to do something very rash. In short, he seems like a young man who has just fallen in love.
SHE.
( hastily )
So you see this orchard is haunted, too!
HE.
I feel it. I seem to hear the ghost of that old-time
lover whispering to me. . . .
SHE.
( provocatively )
Indeed! What does he say?
HE.
He says: “I was a coward; you must be bold.
I was silent; you must speak out.”
SHE.
( mischievously )
That’s very curious–because that old lover isn’t dead at all.
He’s a Congressman or Senator or something, the Agent says.
HE.
( earnestly )
It’s all the same. His youth is dead;
and it is his youth that speaks to me.
SHE.
quickly You mustn’t believe all that ghosts tell you.
HE.
Oh, but I must. For they know the folly of silence
–the bitterness of cowardice.
SHE.
The circumstances were–slightly–different, weren’t they?
HE.
( stubbornly )
I don’t care!
SHE.
( soberly )
You know perfectly well it’s no use.
HE.
I can’t help that!
SHE.
Please! You simply mustn’t! It’s disgraceful!
HE.
What’s disgraceful?
SHE.
( confused )
What you are going to say.
HE.
( simply )
Only that I love you.
What is there disgraceful about that? It’s beautiful!
SHE.
It’s wrong.
HE.
It’s inevitable.
SHE.
Why inevitable?
Can’t you talk with a girl in an orchard for half an hour
without falling in love with her?
HE.
Not if the girl is you.
SHE.
But why especially me ?
HE.
I don’t know. Love–is a mystery.
I only know that I was destined to love you.
SHE.
How can you be so sure?
HE.
Because you have changed the world for me. It’s as though I had been groping about in the dark, and then–sunrise! And there’s a queer feeling here.
( He puts his hand on his heart.)
To tell the honest truth, there’s a still queerer feeling in the pit of my stomach. It’s a gone feeling, if you must know. And my knees are weak. I know now why men used to fall on their knees when they told a girl they loved her; it was because they couldn’t stand up. And there’s a feeling in my feet as though I were walking on air. And–