PAGE 5
The Register
by
MISS SPAULDING, relenting: “It was awkward.”
MISS REED: “Awkward! You seem to think that because I carry things off lightly I have no feeling.”
MISS SPAULDING: “You know I don’t think that, Ethel.”
MISS REED, pursuing her advantage: “I don’t know it from you, Nettie. I’ve tried and TRIED to pass it off as a joke, and to treat it as something funny; but I can tell you it’s no joke at all.”
MISS SPAULDING, sympathetically: “I see, dear.”
MISS REED: “It’s not that I care for him” –
MISS SPAULDING: “Why, of course.”
MISS REED: “For I don’t in the least. He is horrid every way: blunt, and rude, and horrid. I never cared for him. But I care for myself! He has put me in the position of having done an unkind thing–an unladylike thing–when I was only doing what I had to do. Why need he have taken it the way he did? Why couldn’t he have said politely that he couldn’t accept the money because he hadn’t earned it? Even THAT would have been mortifying enough. But he must go and be so violent, and rush off, and–Oh, I never could have treated anybody so!”
MISS SPAULDING: “Not unless you were very fond of them.”
MISS REED: “What?”
MISS SPAULDING: “Not unless you were very fond of them.”
MISS REED, putting away her handkerchief: “Oh, nonsense, Nettie! He never cared anything for me, or he couldn’t have acted so. But no matter for that. He has fixed everything so that it can never be got straight–never in the world. It will just have to remain a hideous mass of–of–I don’t know what; and I have simply got to on withering with despair at the point where I left off. But I don’t care! That’s one comfort.”
MISS SPAULDING: “I don’t believe he’ll let you wither long, Ethel.”
MISS REED: “He’s let me wither for twenty-four hours already! But it’s nothing to me, now, how long he lets me wither. I’m perfectly satisfied to have the affair remain as it is. I am in the right, and if he comes I shall refuse to see him.”
MISS SPAULDING: “Oh, no, you won’t, Ethel!”
MISS REED: “Yes, I shall. I shall receive him very coldly. I won’t listen to any excuse from him.”
MISS SPAULDING: “Oh, yes, you will, Ethel!”
MISS REED: “No, I shall not. If he wishes me to listen he must begin by humbling himself in the dust–yes, the dust, Nettie! I won’t take anything short of it. I insist that he shall realize that I have suffered.”
MISS SPAULDING: “Perhaps he has suffered too!”
MISS REED: “Oh, HE suffered!”
MISS SPAULDING: “You know that he was perfectly devoted to you.”
MISS REED: “He never said so.”
MISS SPAULDING: “Perhaps he didn’t dare.”
MISS REED: “He dared to be very insolent to me.”
MISS SPAULDING: “And you know you liked him very much.”
MISS REED: “I won’t let you say that, Nettie Spaulding. I DIDN’T like him. I respected and admired him; but I didn’t LIKE him. He will come near me; but if he does he has to begin by–by–Let me see, what shall I make him begin by doing?” She casts up her eyes for inspiration while she leans forward over the register. “Yes, I will! He has got to begin by taking that money!”
MISS SPAULDING: “Ethel, you wouldn’t put that affront upon a sensitive and high-spirited man!”