One can live a long time in a fortnight.
SYLVESTER.
I hope these ladies haven’t converted you.
MARGERY.
Yes; I am a new woman.
SYLVESTER [laughs].
Your husband has been reading you his book!
MARGERY.
A good deal of it.
SYLVESTER.
What is it all about? If I am not too curious.
MARGERY.
It’s about love.
SYLVESTER.
I thought it was about marriage.
MARGERY.
Aren’t they the same thing? He says they are, and I agree with him. And then he says [half to herself] that, when the love is gone, so is the marriage—and I think he’s right!
[Loses herself in thought.
SYLVESTER [gazes at her for some moments, then unable to restrain himself].
Ah, Margery! if Heaven had given me such a wife as you——
MARGERY [rises].
Heaven didn’t, and there’s an end of it.
SYLVESTER [rises].
Forgive me! how can I help admiring you?
MARGERY.
Can’t you admire me without telling me? It’s well to make the best of what we have, instead of trying to make the worst of what we haven’t.
SYLVESTER.
I must be silent!
MARGERY.
Or not talk in that way.
[Moves away.
SYLVESTER [following, in an outburst].
Gerald doesn’t love you [movement ofMargery]—oh, you said that just now! you mayn’t know that you said it, but you did! My wife doesn’t love me—I don’t love my wife—and yet I must say nothing.
MARGERY.
What’s it to me that you don’t love your wife?
SYLVESTER.
I loveyou,Margery.
MARGERY.
I knew that was coming.
SYLVESTER.
Honestly love you! I admired you always. It was an empty admiration, perhaps—the admiration a man feels for twenty women—but it grew solid; and the more you repulsed me, the more you attracted me. You mayn’t believe me, but at first Iwantedyou to repulse me; then it got past that; and when I saw you sitting there alone—living over in your mind your wasted life—I loved you, and the words sprang to my lips. Nothing could keep them back! I love you, Margery—nobody but you! Why should your life be wasted? Why should mine?
MARGERY.
Well, have you finished?
SYLVESTER [seizing her].
No!
MARGERY.
I can guess the rest. You say Gerald doesn’t love me, you don’t love your wife, and your wife doesn’t loveyou;but you forget one thing—thatIdon’t love you either.
SYLVESTER.
Not now, but by-and-by. Margery, I would make you love me—I would teach you!
MARGERY.
So, I’m tolearnto be unfaithful, is that it? As one learns music? No, Captain Sylvester! Suppose two people are so much in love that they can’t help it, Heaven is their judge, not me. But tobeginto love when theycanhelp it—not to resist—toteachthemselves to love—that’s where the wrong is, and there’s no gainsaying it.
SYLVESTER.
Suppose your husband left you?
MARGERY.
I would have no other!
SYLVESTER.
Why not?
Re-enterGerald,L.
MARGERY.
Because I love him, and I don’t love you!
[Margery’sback is towardsGerald,so that she doesn’t see him; butSylvesteris facing him and sees him.
GERALD [coming down toMargery].
What has he said?
MARGERY.
Nothing for your ears!
SYLVESTER.
Yes, for all the world’s! I’ll tell you!
MARGERY.
I forbid you! Leave me with my husband.
[Sylvesterhesitates a moment, then exit,C.
GERALD.
Margery, speak! I have a right to know.
MARGERY.
You have no right!
GERALD.
You will not tell me?
MARGERY.
No!
GERALD.
Thenhe shall!
[Advances on her.
MARGERY.
Stand back! You shall not go!
GERALD.
What, you defend him?
MARGERY.
Against you, I do! Who are you to question him? Are your own hands clean?
GERALD [drops back as if struck].
Margery!
MARGERY [holding out her hand].
Good-bye!
GERALD.
Good-bye?
MARGERY.
I’m going home.
GERALD.
To Mapledurham?
MARGERY.
We’ll say good-bye now.
GERALD.
Here—Margery?
MARGERY.
You needn’t be afraid. There’ll be no scene; I’ve done with tears.
GERALD.
You’re [chokes] going to leave me?
MARGERY.
Yes.
GERALD.
For a few days, you mean?
MARGERY.
I mean, for ever. Gerald, I’ve had enough of half a home and only half a heart. I’m starving, withering, dying here with you! They love me there! Let me go back to them! Oh, what a world it is! To think that one can get the love of any man except the man one loves!
GERALD.
You have it, Margery!
MARGERY [fiercely].
I haven’t.
GERALD.
If you only knew——
MARGERY.
I know I haven’t! what’s the use of words? Do you think a woman doesn’t know when she’s not loved, or is? When you first said you loved me, down in the fields yonder, do you suppose you took me by surprise? You had no need to swear. I knew you loved me, just as certainly as I know now you don’t!
GERALD [much moved].
Oh, what a scoundrel I was, Margery!
MARGERY.
No man’s a scoundrel to the woman he loves. Ah, it was easy to forgive your loving me. But I’ll do something that is not so easy. I will forgive you fornotloving me. It’s been a struggle. For the last fortnight I haven’t said a word, because I wasn’t master of myself, and I didn’t want to speak till I’d forgiven you. I wasn’t listening, Gerald. Heaven knows I would have given all the world not to have heard a word; but when you spoke my name, I couldn’t move. The ground seemed slipping underneath my feet, and all the happiness of all my life went out of it in those three words, “Margery’s hopeless, hopeless!”
GERALD.
Don’t! don’t! you torture me!
MARGERY.
Yes, Margeryishopeless. Every scrap of hope has gone out of her heart. I heard no more. It was enough.There was the end of all the world for me. [Geraldgroans.] But it was well I heard you. I should have gone blundering along, in my old madcap way, and perhaps not found it out till I had spoilt your life. It’s well to know the truth; but, Gerald dear, why didn’t you tell it me instead of her? Why didn’t you tell me I was no companion? I would have gone away. But to pretend you loved me, when you didn’t—to let me go on thinking you were happy, when all the time you were regretting your mistake—not to tellme,and to tell someone else—oh, it was cruel, when I loved you so!
GERALD.
How could I tell you, Margery?
MARGERY.
How could you tellher?How could she listen to you? I forgiveyou,Gerald—I didn’t at first, but now I understand that there are times when one’s heart is so sore, it must cry out to somebody. Butshe——
GERALD.
It was my fault!
MARGERY.
You are mistaken there. It was your voice that spoke them, but the words were hers. It’s she who’s robbed me of your love! It isn’t I who’ve lost it; she has stolen it!
GERALD.
No, no!
MARGERY.
Be careful, or she’ll steal your honour too. Don’t trust to her fine phrases. She deceives herself. She wants your love, that’s what that woman wants: not to instruct the world—just to be happy—nothing more or less; but she won’t make you happy or herself. If I am no companion, she’s a bad one!
GERALD.
You wrong her, Margery—indeed, you do!Iwas the culprit——
MARGERY.
Have some pity on me! Don’t let the last words I shall hear you say be words defending her! Think what she’sdone for me! Think how you loved me when you married me—think what our two lives might have been, but for her—think what minewillbe! for mine won’t be like yours. Your love is dead, and you will bury it, but mine’s alive—alive!
[Breaks down.
GERALD.
And so is mine!
MARGERY [springs up].
Don’t soil your lips with lies! I’ve borne as much as I can bear. I can’t bear that!
GERALD.
If you will only listen——
MARGERY.
I have heard too much! Don’t speak again, or you will make me hate you! My mind’s made up. I have no business here! You are above me. I’m no wife for you! I’m dragging you down every day and hour.
GERALD.
Margery! you shall not go!
MARGERY [flinging him off].
To-night and now! Good-bye!
[Rushes into conservatory,R.
GERALD.
What right have I to stop her?
[Goes up, leans upon chair. Re-enterSylvester,C.
SYLVESTER.
Now, Mr. Cazenove, I am at your service.
GERALD.
You are too late.
[Exit,C.
SYLVESTER.
So, he won’t speak to me. But I will make him. If he thinks I am caught, like a rat in a trap, he’s made a mistake. There’ll be a scandal—well, so much the better! Better that they should know the truth all round.
Re-enterMrs. Sylvester,L.
MRS. SYLVESTER.
Ah, you are here! I’ve been looking for you everywhere.
SYLVESTER.
Looking forme?
MRS. SYLVESTER.
I want you to take me home.
SYLVESTER.
I’ve something to say to you. Sit down.
MRS. SYLVESTER.
Not to-night. I’m tired.
SYLVESTER.
Yes, to-night. What I’m going to say may be everybody’s property to-morrow. I choose that you should know it now.
MRS. SYLVESTER.
I don’t understand you.
SYLVESTER.
But you shall. I’ve often heard you say that a loveless marriage is no marriage. Well, ours is loveless enough, isn’t it?
MRS. SYLVESTER.
It has been.
SYLVESTER.
It is! I’ve never understood you; and if there was any good in me, you’ve never taken the trouble to find it out.
MRS. SYLVESTER.
I can’t bear this now.
SYLVESTER.
You must. Don’t think I’m going to reproach you. I take all the blame on myself. What if I were to tell you that you’ve made a convert to your principles where you least expected it?
MRS. SYLVESTER.
What do you mean?
SYLVESTER.
That it’s best for us both to put an end to this farce that we’re living. I mean, that I love another woman.
MRS. SYLVESTER [rising].
You!
SYLVESTER.
Perhaps that seems to you impossible. You thought,perhaps, that I was dull and stupid enough to go on with this empty life of ours to the end. I thought so too, but I was wrong. I love this woman, and I’ve told her so——
MRS. SYLVESTER [with jealousy].
Who is she?
SYLVESTER.
And I would tell her husband to his face
MRS. SYLVESTER.
Then she is married?
SYLVESTER.
As I tellyou.
MRS. SYLVESTER.
Who is she, I say?
SYLVESTER.
Margery.
MRS. SYLVESTER.
Margery! Are you all mad, you men? What is it in that woman that enslaves you? What is the charm we others don’t possess? Only you men can see it; and you all do! You lose your senses, every one of you! What is it in her that bewitches you?
SYLVESTER.
What you’ve crushed out of yourself—your womanhood. What you’re ashamed of is a woman’s glory. Philosophy is well enough in boots; but in a woman a man wants flesh and blood—frank human nature!
MRS. SYLVESTER [laughing, hysterically].
A mere animal!
SYLVESTER.
A woman.
MRS. SYLVESTER.
Well, you have found one.
SYLVESTER.
Yes.
MRS. SYLVESTER.
Take her, then! go your way!
SYLVESTER.
I will.
[Exit,C.
MRS. SYLVESTER.
This world was made for such as you and her!
Re-enterMargery,R.,cloaked.
We have no place in it—we who love with our brains! we have no chance of happiness!
MARGERY.
What chance have we? we, who love with our hearts! we, who are simply what God made us—women! we, to whom love is not a cult—a problem, but just as vital as the air we breathe. Take love away from us, and you take life itself. You have your books, your sciences, your brains! What have we?—nothing but our broken hearts!
MRS. SYLVESTER.
Broken hearts heal! The things thatyoucall hearts! One love is dead, another takes its place; one man is lost, another man is found. What is the difference to a love like yours? Oh, there are always men for such women as you!
By degrees re-enter omnes,R.,L.,andC.,gradually, exceptGerald.
MARGERY.
But if the love is not dead? if it’s stolen? what is our lot then—ours, whose love’s alive? We, who’re not skilled to steal—who only want our own——
MRS. SYLVESTER.
Not skilled to steal! have you not stolen mine?
MARGERY.
I have one husband, and I want no other!
[Murmurs.
LADY WARGRAVE [restraining her].
Calm yourself, dear!
MARGERY.
I have been calm too long!
LADY WARGRAVE.
Remember, you are my niece.
MARGERY.
That’s what I do remember! [Murmurs continue.] I am Gerald’s wife! That’s what she doesn’t forgive me! [AddressingMrs. Sylvester.] You call yourself a NewWoman—you’re not New at all. You’re just as old as Eve. You only want one thing—the one thing every woman wants—the one thing that no woman’s life’s worth living without! A true man’s love! Ah, if we all had that, there’d be no problem of the sexes then. I had it once. Heaven help me, I have lost it! I’ve done my best—it isn’t much, but it’s the best I can. I give it up! If you have robbed me of his love, my own is left to me; and if the future’s yours, the past is mine. He loved me once, and I shall love him always!
[Exit,C.
A Month Later.
Scene:—An orchard at Mapledurham. Farmhouse at back,C.Paths off,R.andL.front. A cluster of trees,R.,at back. A few stumps of trees to serve as seats.
Margerydiscovered, standing on a ladder placed against one of the trees, gathering apples, which she throws into a basket below. She is dressed in peasant costume.
EnterArmstrong,C.
ARMSTRONG.
Margery!
MARGERY.
Yes, dad!
ARMSTRONG [comes underneath the tree and roars with laughter].
Here’s a slice of luck! That fellow in London wants the grey mare back again!
MARGERY [who has come down].
The grey mare, father?
ARMSTRONG.
Old Dapple! you remember her?
MARGERY.
Of course! but what about her?
ARMSTRONG.
Bless me, haven’t I told you? I sold old Dapple to a chap in London.
MARGERY [reproachfully]
You sold old Dapple?
ARMSTRONG.
She’s too good for hereabouts. True, she’s a splint on the off leg, but what’s a splint? I sold her without warranty, and buyer took her with all faults, just as she stood.
MARGERY.
Well, dad?
ARMSTRONG.
Darn me, if the next day he didn’t cry off his bargain!
MARGERY [thoughtfully].
Poor Dapple!
ARMSTRONG.
Oh, says I, if you’re not satisfied with her, I am. So, there’s your money; give me back my mare. An Armstrong doesn’t stand on warranties.
MARGERY.
No, daddy dear, and you don’t mind the splint?
ARMSTRONG.
But Margery, you should have seen the screw he got in place of her! Ha, ha! she wasallsplints!
MARGERY.
He’s found that out?
ARMSTRONG.
And wants the old mare back! at my own price!
MARGERY.
Thisisgood news! For we were getting hard up, weren’t we, father?
ARMSTRONG.
Ay, farming isn’t what it used to be; and now that you won’t let me take in visitors——
MARGERY.
I never stopped you.
ARMSTRONG.
How about Captain Sylvester?
MARGERY.
Oh, him!
ARMSTRONG.
He’s an old customer; and always seemed a civil-spoken gentleman enough.
MARGERY.
Too civil!
ARMSTRONG.
That’s more than you were, Margery. You’d scarce say a word.
MARGERY.
He came for no good.
ARMSTRONG.
There’s no harm in trout fishing—unless it’s for the trout.
MARGERY.
I was the trout.
ARMSTRONG.
You? Go on! That’s the way with you girls! You think all the men are after you. I’m sure he said nothing to hurt you.
MARGERY.
But he has written since.
ARMSTRONG [scratches his head].
I didn’t know he’d written.
MARGERY.
Nearly every day.
ARMSTRONG.
Those letters were fromhim?I thought they were from——
[Hesitates.
MARGERY.
No! From Captain Sylvester.
ARMSTRONG.
Of course you haven’t answered them?
MARGERY.
Only the last.
ARMSTRONG.
I shouldn’t have done that.
MARGERY.
Yes, you would, dad!
ARMSTRONG.
Well, you know best. You always went your own way, Margery, and it was always the right road.
MARGERY.
Where shall I put these apples?
ARMSTRONG.
Nay, I’ve the broadest shoulders. Give me a hand; I’ll take ’em.
[Margeryhelps him to put the basket on his shoulders. Exit,C.
MARGERY.
Dear old dad! We leave our parents, and we return to them; they let us go, and they take us back again! How little we think of their partings, and how much of our own!
[Sits,R.
EnterSylvester,L.front.
SYLVESTER.
I saw you in the apple-tree, and took a short cut.
MARGERY.
You got my message then?
SYLVESTER.
How good of you to send for me! So then my letters have had some effect?
MARGERY.
I sent for you because I want to speak to you.
SYLVESTER.
And I to you. Margery, I’ve left my wife.
MARGERY.
Yes, so I heard.
SYLVESTER.
She was no wife to me. For years our marriage has been a mockery, and it was best to put an end to it. Now I am free.
MARGERY.
Because you’ve left your wife?
SYLVESTER.
It’s no use beating about the bush. Things have gone too far, and I’m too much in earnest. She loves your husband. It is common talk. I’ve shut my eyes as long aspossible, and you’ve shut yours; but we both know the truth.
MARGERY.
That you’ve deserted her!
SYLVESTER.
What if I have?
MARGERY.
Go back.
SYLVESTER.
Back to a wife who is no wife!
MARGERY.
Back to the woman you promised to protect, and whom you left when she most needed you.
SYLVESTER.
Because I love you, Margery!
MARGERY.
That love won’t last long. Love can’t live on nothing!
SYLVESTER.
There is no hope for me?
MARGERY.
No, not a scrap!
SYLVESTER.
Then what do you propose? To sacrifice your life to an idea—to be true to a phantom? You owe no faith to one who is unfaithful. Think! You are young—your real life lies before you—would you end it before it’s begun? A widow before you’re a wife?
MARGERY.
I am a wife, and I shall not forget it. If I have lost my husband’s love, at least I’ll save his honour. A public scandal mayn’t mean much toyou,but it means your wife’s ruin—it means Gerald’s. Gerald shall not be ruined! Youshallgo back to her!
SYLVESTER.
Is it a challenge?
MARGERY.
Challenge or not, youshall!It is ignoble to desert her so! You are a coward to make love to me! If her love was unworthy, what is yours? Is it for you to cast astone at her? See! Read your letters! [Producing a packet.] Letters to me—love-letters! Letters to a woman you didn’t respect in her grief and persecuted in her loneliness—a woman who would have none of you—who tells you to your face you’re not a man! Your love’s an insult! take the thing away!
[Turns off. Pause.
SYLVESTER.
Do you propose to send those to my wife?
MARGERY.
No! but I want to make you realize you need more mercy than you show to her. These letters were written for my eye alone; to open them was to promise secrecy.
SYLVESTER.
Why have you kept them, then?
MARGERY.
To give them back to you.
[Gives him the packet. Another pause.
SYLVESTER.
Margery, everything you say and do makes it more hard to go away from you.
MARGERY.
You’re going, then?
SYLVESTER.
Your words leave me no choice.
MARGERY.
Where are you going? to her?
SYLVESTER.
I don’t know yet. I don’t know if I’m welcome.
[Playing with the packet, mechanically.
MARGERY.
That rests with you. You say, she’s been no wife to you; but have you been a husband to her?
SYLVESTER.
Why do you take her part? She’s injured you enough.
MARGERY.
Yes; shehasinjured me; but now I know what it is to live without love, and to want it, I can pardon her. Can’t you? [Goes to him and gives him both her hands.] Forgive her, Captain Sylvester—freely as I do you—giveher the love that you have offered me—and you will find your wife’s a woman just as much as I am.
SYLVESTER.
Margery—I may call you “Margery?”
MARGERY.
I’m “Margery” to everybody now.
SYLVESTER.
If there were more women like you, there would be fewer men like me.
[Exit,L.
MARGERY [looks after him, then goes,R.front and looks again].
He’ll go back to his wife; and if she isn’t happy, it’s her fault.
[Exit,R.
Re-enterArmstrong,showing out,C.,Lady Wargraveand theColonel.
ARMSTRONG.
This way, my lady. I’ll send Margery to you.
[ExitArmstrong,R.
COLONEL.
This must be put right, Caroline.
LADY WARGRAVE.
I mean to put it right.
COLONEL [severely].
A Cazenove living apart from his wife!
LADY WARGRAVE.
It is sad—very sad.
COLONEL.
More than that, Caroline—it’s not respectable.
LADY WARGRAVE.
That doesn’t troubleyou.
COLONEL.
It shocks me. The institution of marriage is the foundation of society; and whatever tends to cast discredit on that holy “ordnance” saps the moral fibre of the community.
LADY WARGRAVE.
Did you say, “ordnance?”
COLONEL.
I did say, “ordnance.” It was a slip of the tongue.
LADY WARGRAVE.
You are not used to ordinances.
COLONEL.
What do you mean, Caroline? Wasn’t I baptized—wasn’t I confirmed?
LADY WARGRAVE.
There is another ceremony which, during a somewhat long career, you have systematically avoided.
COLONEL.
A mere sin of omission, which even now it is not too late to repair. I am a young man still——
LADY WARGRAVE.
Young man?
COLONEL.
Comparatively. And everything in the world is comparative. What cannot be undone in the past can at least be avoided in the future.
LADY WARGRAVE.
What is the matter with you, Theodore? You have suddenly become quite a moral martinet, and have developed such a severity of aspect that I scarcely know my own brother.
COLONEL [aside].
Shall I tell her? Dare I? Courage!
LADY WARGRAVE.
I think I liked you better as you were. At any rate, I was used to you.
COLONEL.
How peaceful it is here, Caroline—how sylvan!
LADY WARGRAVE.
Yes, it’s a pretty little place enough.
COLONEL.
It might have been created expressly for the exchange of those sacred confidences which are never more becoming than when shared between a brother and a sister.
LADY WARGRAVE.
Good gracious! you are growing quite sentimental! I have no confidences to make.
COLONEL.
ButIhave.
LADY WARGRAVE.
Theodore! What fresh iniquity—?
COLONEL.
Caroline, I am going to be married.
[Blows his nose vigorously.
LADY WARGRAVE [astounded].
Married!
COLONEL.
To-morrow.
LADY WARGRAVE.
To whom, pray?
COLONEL.
Miss Bethune.
LADY WARGRAVE.
Give me my smelling salts.
COLONEL [gives her them].
Enid! Pretty name, isn’t it? Enid!
[Smiling to himself.
LADY WARGRAVE.
No fool like an old fool!
COLONEL.
Fifty-six.
LADY WARGRAVE.
Eight.
COLONEL.
But don’t tell Enid, will you?
LADY WARGRAVE.
There are so many things I mustn’t tell Enid!
COLONEL.
No, Caroline; I’ve made a clean breast of it.
LADY WARGRAVE.
Quitea clean breast of it?
COLONEL.
Everything in the world is comparative.
LADY WARGRAVE.
Then, Miss Bethune has renounced her opinions?
COLONEL.
Oh, no; she’s too much of a woman for that.
LADY WARGRAVE.
How can she reconcile them with your enormities?
COLONEL.
My peccadilloes? Oh, she doesn’t believe them—or she pretends she doesn’t—which is the same thing. She says we men exaggerate so; and as for the women, you simply can’t believe a word they say!
[Chuckles in his old style.
LADY WARGRAVE.
At any rate, she means to marry you?
COLONEL.
Upon the whole, she thinks I have been rather badly used.
[Chuckles again.
LADY WARGRAVE.
To marry! after your experience!
COLONEL.
Way of the world, my dear. My poor old adjutant! went through the Mutiny unscathed, and killed in Rotten Row!
LADY WARGRAVE.
Well, it was quite time that you had a nurse!
[Rising and goingR.front to meetMargery.
COLONEL.
Caroline’s taken it very well. Nothing like courage in these matters—courage! “Nurse” was distinctly nasty; but that’s Caroline’s way.
Re-enterArmstrong,R.,followed byMargery.
ARMSTRONG.
Found her at last, my lady.
LADY WARGRAVE.
Leave us together, Armstrong.
[Margerydrops a curtsey.
ARMSTRONG.
Come with me, Colonel. If you’ll step indoors, I’ll give you a glass of ale that’ll do your heart good.
COLONEL [putting his arm throughArmstrong’s].
Caroline takes it very well.
[Quite forgetting himself.
ARMSTRONG.
My lady’s very welcome.
COLONEL [hastily withdrawing his arm].
No, no, no! I was talking to myself. [ExitArmstrong,C.,roaring. Aside, glancing atLady Wargrave.] Nurse!
[Exit,C.
LADY WARGRAVE.
Margery, I’ve come to scold you.
MARGERY.
Yes, my lady.
LADY WARGRAVE.
Aunt. Come and sit down by me. [Draws her towards seat under the tree,L.Lady Wargravesits—Margeryat her feet.] Yes, Margery, to scold you. Why did you not confide in me? If you had only told me of your troubles, this would never have happened. It was undutiful.
MARGERY.
No, aunt. There are some troubles one can confide to nobody—some griefs which are too sacred to be talked about.
LADY WARGRAVE.
And is yours one of them? You are young, Margery; and youth exaggerates its sorrows as well as its joys. Nothing has happened that cannot be put right, if you will only trust me and obey me.
MARGERY.
I owe my obedience elsewhere.
LADY WARGRAVE.
And do you think that you have paid it?
MARGERY.
Yes.
LADY WARGRAVE.
Geralddesiredyou to leave him?
MARGERY.
No; but I read his thoughts—just as you used to say I could read yours—and I obeyed his wishes.
LADY WARGRAVE.
Then if he wished you to return, you would come back?
MARGERY.
Not if he’d been talked over; not if he asked me to goback to him because he thinks it his duty, or I want him. I don’t want duty; I want love.
LADY WARGRAVE.
You wouldn’t see him, if I sent him to you?
MARGERY.
What is the use of seeing him? You can send Gerald, but not Gerald’s heart. I have done all I can—I can’t do any more. I’ve saved his honour—I’ve resigned his love. All I ask is, to be left alone with mine.
[Turning away.
[Lady Wargraverises, and asGeraldadvances, retires into the house,C.
GERALD.
Margery!
MARGERY.
Gerald!
GERALD.
I am not here to ask you to come back to me. How can I say what I have come for? I have come—because I cannot keep away from you. To ask for your forgiveness——
MARGERY.
You have that.
GERALD.
And, if it’s possible, some place in your esteem. Let me say this, and I will say no more. If, for a little space, my heart strayed from you, Margery—if, for a moment, words escaped my lips which cannot be recalled, that is my only infidelity. You understand me?
MARGERY.
Yes.
GERALD.
That’s what I came to say—that’s all!
MARGERY [giving him her hand].
Thank you for telling me.
GERALD [holding her hand].
Not all I want to say, but all I must. I am no longer a free man. My lips are sealed.
MARGERY.
What seals them?
GERALD.
Haven’t you heard? Sylvester’s left his wife—and it is all my doing.
MARGERY.
No, it is his.
GERALD.
His?
MARGERY.
I may tell you now. He left his wife, not through your fault or hers, but to make love to me.
GERALD.
He has been here?
MARGERY.
But he has gone.
GERALD.
Where?
MARGERY.
To his wife. I sent him back to her.
GERALD.
Then, I am free!
MARGERY.
Yes, Gerald.
GERALD.
Free to say how I love you—how I have always loved you! Yes, Margery, I loved you even then—then when I spoke those unjust, cruel words; but love’s so weird a thing it sometimes turns us against those we love. But when I saw you, there upon the ground, my heart turned back to you—no, it was not my heart, only my lips that were unfaithful! My heart was always yours—not half of it, but all—yours when I married you, yours when you said good-bye, and never more yours, never as much as now, now I have lost you.
MARGERY.
You have not lost me, if you love me that much!
[Throwing her arms round him.
GERALD.
Margery!
Lady WargraveandColonelre-enter, quietly,C.,and stand, looking on, at back, amongst the trees.
GERALD.
My wife again!
MARGERY.
But, Gerald, remember I am nothing more. I don’t think I shall ever be a lady.
GERALD.
Always in my eyes!
MARGERY.
No, not even there. Only a woman.
GERALD.
I want you to be nothing less or more—only a woman!
[About to kiss her.Lady Wargrave,at back, bows her head, with her fan half spread before theColonel’sface.GeraldkissesMargery.
CURTAIN.
CHISWICK PRESS:—CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.