The Girl with the Green Eyes Part 22

AUSTIN. [_Calmly._] You've got to!

Geoffrey. I'd rather shoot myself; do you understand me--I'd rather shoot myself!

AUSTIN. That's nothing! That would be decidedly the _easiest_ course out of it, _and_ the most _cowardly_.

GEOFFREY. She'll hate me! She'll loathe me! How could she help it at first! But just after a little, if I weren't there, the love she has for me might move her somehow or other--and by degrees perhaps--to forgive--

AUSTIN. I don't deny that you will have to go through a terrible degradation with her--but that is nothing compared with what you deserve. If _you_ tell her, at least the humiliation is secret, locked there between you two, and no one else in the world can ever know what happens; _but_ if you send some one else, and no matter who,--_any one_ else but you _is_ an outsider,--you ask her to make a spectacle of her humiliation, to let a third in as witness to the relations and emotions between you two! It's insulting her _again_! Don't you _see_?

[_A pause._

GEOFFREY. Yes, I see! My G.o.d! I _must_ tell her myself.

AUSTIN. That's right, don't waver, make up your mind and do it--Come!

[_Urging him up._

GEOFFREY. [_Hesitates a moment._] And Jinny?

AUSTIN. Oh, she'll come round all right; she always does.

GEOFFREY. And she doesn't suspect?

AUSTIN. Not the slightest.

[_A pause._

GEOFFREY. Need she?

AUSTIN. The worst? No, _never_!

GEOFFREY. [_He rises, with new encouragement._] You'll give me your word?

AUSTIN. Yes. [_Shakes his hand._] I know how much she loves you; _I_ wouldn't have her know anything. It's made us some ugly scenes, but they soon pa.s.s, and when you are once out of your trouble for good, we'll have no excuse, I'm sure, for any more!

GEOFFREY. Then I shall go to bed to-night with the respect still of at least two women who are dear to me, my mother and Jinny, even if I lose the respect and love of the one woman who is dearer! Only think, Jack, how I've got to stand up there--never mind about myself--and make _her suffer tortures_! Good-by. G.o.d give me courage to do the heart-breaking thing I must do.

AUSTIN. I am sure the one hope you have of forgiveness is in your manliness of going to her as you are doing and telling her yourself _all_ the truth!

GEOFFREY. And that, like everything else, I owe to you.

AUSTIN. No, to _Jinny_! Good luck!

[_He shakes GEOFFREY'S hand and GEOFFREY goes out Right._

AUSTIN. [_Goes to the door Left, opens it, and calls to JINNY, in the next room._] Jinny, Geoffrey's gone,--what are you doing?

JINNY. [_Answers in a very little staccato voice._] Waiting till you should have the leisure to receive me!

AUSTIN. Come along!

[_Leaves the doorway._

[_JINNY enters Left and stands in the doorway._

JINNY. [_With affected nonchalance._] I didn't care to go downstairs for dinner, so I have had a tray up here. Maggie brought up something for you, too; would you like it now?

AUSTIN. [_Ignoring purposely her mood and manner._] I shouldn't mind! I do feel a little hungry.

[_He sits in the arm-chair._

JINNY. [_Speaks off through the doorway Left._] Bring in the tray for Mr. Austin, Maggie.

MAGGIE. [_Off stage._] Yes'm.

[_JINNY pulls forward a little tea table beside his chair. Her whole manner must be one of slow, dragging carelessness, like the calm before a storm. Her expression must be hard. She carries the telegram still unopened, and on top of it the theatre tickets torn into pieces._

[_MAGGIE brings in the tray, puts it on the table, and goes out Right.

On the tray are chops, peas, some whiskey, a syphon, a roll, etc._

AUSTIN. [_Sits down quickly and with a show of eagerness._] Ah!

[_Begins to eat as if he were hungry and enjoyed it._

[_JINNY sits on the sofa at his Left, and looks at him,--AUSTIN is of course conscious of JINNY'S mood, but pretends not to notice it._

AUSTIN. [_After a silence during which he eats._] I say I _am_ hungry!

And these chops _are_ very good, aren't they?

[_No answer._

I'll tell you what it is, Jinny! Of course travelling is great sport and all the rest of it, but after all one does get tired of hotels, and to quote a somewhat familiar refrain, "There's no place like home."

[_No answer._

Have you a headache, Jinny?

JINNY. [_Very short._] No.

AUSTIN. That's a good thing, and I hope you are not as disappointed as I am about the theatre.

JINNY. [_Half laughs._] Humph!

AUSTIN. I'll celebrate _your_ birthday to-morrow and take _you_.

JINNY. [_Quickly._] _Why_ did you go to Brooklyn?

AUSTIN. On the private business of some one else.