Alice Sit-By-The-Fire Part 18

COLONEL. 'Why did you ask Amy to follow us here?'

ALICE. 'So that we could all be together when we broke it to you, dear.'

COLONEL. 'Another lie! My shoulders are broad; why shouldn't I have it to bear as well as you?'

ALICE. 'There is nothing to bear but just a little folly.'

COLONEL. 'Folly! And neither of them able to say a word?'

Indeed they are very cold lovers; Amy's lip is curled at Steve. To make matters worse, the cupboard door, which has so far had the decency to remain quiet, now presumes to have its say. It opens of itself a few inches, creaking guiltily. Three people are so startled that a new suspicion is roused in the fourth.

ALICE, who can read his face so well, 'She wasn't there, Robert, she wasn't.'

COLONEL. 'My G.o.d! I understand now; she didn't follow us; she hid there when I came.'

ALICE. 'No, Robert, no.'

He goes into the cupboard and returns with something in his hand, which he gives to Amy.

COLONEL. 'Your other glove, Amy.'

ALICE. 'I can't keep it from you any longer, Robert; I have done my best.' She goes to Amy to protect her. 'But Amy is still my child.'

'What a deceiver' Amy is thinking.

COLONEL. 'Well, sir, still waiting for that interview with my wife before you can say anything?'

STEVE, a desperate fellow, 'Yes.'

ALICE. 'You will have every opportunity of explaining, Steve, many opportunities; but in the meantime--just now, please go, leave us alone.' Stamping her foot: 'Go, please.'

Steve has had such an evening of it that he clings dizzily to the one amazing explanation, that Alice loves him not wisely but too well.

Never will he betray her, never.

STEVE, with a meaning that is lost on her but is very evident to the other lady present,

'Anything _you_ ask me to do, Alice, anything. I shall go upstairs only, so that if you want me--'

ALICE. 'Oh, go.' He goes, wondering whether he is a villain or a hero, which is perhaps a pleasurable state of mind.

COLONEL. 'You are wondrous lenient to him; I shall have more to say.

As for this girl--look at her standing there, she seems rather proud of herself.'

ALICE. 'It isn't really hardness, Robert. It is because she thinks that you are hard. Robert, dear, I want you to go away too, and leave Amy to me. Go home, Robert; we shall follow soon.'

COLONEL, after a long pause, 'If you wish it.'

ALICE. 'Leave her to her mother.'

When he has gone Amy leans across the top of a chair, sobbing her little heart away. Alice tries to take her--the whole of her--in her arms, but is rebuffed with a shudder.

AMY. 'I wonder you can touch me.'

ALICE. 'The more you ask of your mother the more she has to give. It is my love you need, Amy; and you can draw upon it, and draw upon it.'

AMY. 'Pray excuse me.'

ALICE. 'How can you be so hard! My child, I am not saying one harsh word to you. I am asking you only to hide your head upon your mother's breast.'

AMY. 'I decline.'

ALICE. 'Take care, Amy, or I shall begin to believe that your father was right. What do you think would happen if I were to leave you to him!'

AMY. 'Poor father.'

ALICE. 'Poor indeed with such a daughter.'

AMY. 'He has gone, mother; so do you really think you need keep up this pretence before me?'

ALICE. 'Amy, what you need is a whipping.'

AMY. 'You ought to know what I need.'

The agonised mother again tries to envelop her unnatural child.

ALICE. 'Amy, Amy, it was all Steve's fault.'

AMY, struggling as with a boa constrictor, 'You needn't expect me to believe that.'

ALICE. 'No doubt you thought at the beginning that he was a gallant gentleman.'

AMY. 'Not at all; I knew he was depraved from the moment I set eyes on him.'

ALICE. 'My Amy! Then how--how--'

AMY. 'Ginevra knew too.'

ALICE. 'She knew!'

AMY. 'We planned it together--to treat him in the same way as Sir Harry Paskill and Ralph Devereux.'

ALICE. 'Amy, you are not in your senses. You don't mean that there were others?'

AMY. 'There was Major--Major--I forget his name, but he was another.'

ALICE, shaking her, 'Wretched girl.'

AMY. 'Leave go.'