Second Plays Part 61

GERVASE. Do you mean professionally?

SUSAN. Yes. There is a young fellow, a contortionist and sword-swallower, known locally in these parts as Humphrey the Human Hiatus, who travels from village to village. Just for a moment I wondered--

(He glances at GERVASE's legs, which are uncovered. GERVASE hastily wraps his coat round them.)

GERVASE. I am not Humphrey. No. Gervase the Cheese Swallower. . . .

Er--my costume--

SUSAN. Please say nothing more. It was ill-mannered of me to have inquired. Let a man wear what he likes. It is a free world.

GERVASE. Well, the fact is, I have been having a bathe.

SUSAN (with a bow). I congratulate you on your bathing costume.

GERVASE. Not at all.

SUSAN. You live near here then?

GERVASE. Little Malling. I came over in a car.

SUSAN. Little Malling? That's about twenty miles away.

GERVASE. Oh, much more than that surely.

SUSAN. No. There's Hedgling down there.

GERVASE (surprised). Hedgling? Heavens, how I must have lost my way. . . . Then I have been within a mile of her all night. And I never knew!

SUSAN. You are married, Mr. Mallory?

GERVASE. No. Not yet.

SUSAN. Get married.

GERVASE. What?

SUSAN. Take my advice and get married.

GERVASE. You recommend it?

SUSAN. I do. . . . There is no companion like a wife, if you marry the right woman.

GERVASE. Oh?

SUSAN. I have been married thirty years. Thirty years of happiness.

GERVASE. But in your profession you must go away from your wife a good deal.

SUSAN (smiling). But then I come back to her a good deal.

GERVASE (thoughtfully). Yes, that must be rather jolly.

SUSAN. Why do you think I welcomed your company so much when I came upon you here this morning?

GERVASE (modestly). Oh, well----

SUSAN. It was something to tell my wife when I got back to her. When you are married, every adventure becomes two adventures. You have your adventure, and then you go back to your wife and have your adventure again. Perhaps it is a better adventure that second time. You can say the things which you didn't quite say the first time, and do the things which you didn't quite do. When my week's travels are ever, and I go back to my wife, I shall have a whole week's happenings to tell her. They won't lose in the telling, Mr. Mallory. Our little breakfast here this morning--she will love to hear about that. I can see her happy excited face as I tell her all that I said to you, and--if I can remember it--all that you said to me.

GERVASE (eagerly). I say, how jolly! (Thoughtfully) You won't forget what I said about the Great Percy? I thought that was rather good.

SUSAN. I hope it wasn't too good, Mr. Mallory. If it was, I shall find myself telling it to her as one of my own remarks. That's why I say "Get married." Then you can make things fair for yourself. You can tell her all the good things of mine which _you_ said.

GERVASE. But there must be more in marriage than that.

SUSAN. There are a million things in marriage, but companionship is at the bottom of it all. . . . Do you know what companionship means?

GERVASE. How do you mean? Literally?

SUSAN. The derivation of it in the dictionary. It means the art of having meals with a person. Cynics talk of the impossibility of sitting opposite the same woman every day at breakfast. Impossible to _them_, perhaps, poor shallow-hearted creatures, but not impossible to two people who have found what love is.

GERVASE. It doesn't sound very romantic.

SUSAN (solemnly). It is the most romantic thing in the whole world. . . .

Some more cheese?

GERVASE (taking it). Thank you. . . . (Thoughtfully) Do you believe in love at first sight, Master Susan?

SUSAN. Why not? If it's the woman you love at first sight, not only the face.

GERVASE. I see. (After a pause) It's rather hard to tell, you know. I suppose the proper thing to do is to ask her to have breakfast with you, and see how you get on.

SUSAN. Well, you might do worse.

GERVASE (laughing). And propose to her after breakfast?

SUSAN. If you will. It is better than proposing to her at a ball as some young people do, carried away suddenly by a s.n.a.t.c.hed kiss in the moonlight.

GERVASE (shaking his head). Nothing like that happened last night.

SUSAN. What does the Great Alfred say of the kiss?

GERVASE. I never read the _Daily Mail_.

SUSAN. Tennyson, Mr. Mallory, Tennyson.

GERVASE. Oh, I beg your pardon.

SUSAN. "The kiss," says the Great Alfred, "the woven arms, seem but to be weak symbols of the settled bliss, the comfort, I have found in thee." The same idea, Mr. Mallory. Companionship, or the art of having breakfast with a person. (Getting up) Well, I must be moving on. _We_ have been companions for a short time; I thank you for it. I wish you well.