The Philanderer Part 9

SYLVIA. Yes, you would think he was a great deal better. But the microbes are at work, slowly but surely. In another year it will be all over. Poor old Dad! it's unfeeling to talk about him in this att.i.tude: I must sit down properly. (She comes down from the settee and takes the chair near the bookstand.) I should like papa to live for ever just to take the conceit out of Paramore. I believe he's in love with Julia.

CHARTERIS (starting up excitedly). In love with Julia! A ray of hope on the horizon! Do you really mean it?

SYLVIA. I should think I do. Why do you suppose he's hanging about the club to-day in a beautiful new coat and tie instead of attending to his patients? That lunch with Julia will finish him. He'll ask Daddy's consent before they come back--I'll bet you three to one he will, in anything you please.

CHARTERIS. Gloves?

SYLVIA. No: cigarettes.

CHARTERIS. Done! But what does she think about it? Does she give him any encouragement?

SYLVIA. Oh, the usual thing. Enough to keep any other woman from getting him.

CHARTERIS. Just so. I understand. Now listen to me: I am going to speak as a philosopher. Julia is jealous of everybody--everybody. If she saw you flirting with Paramore she'd begin to value him directly.

You might play up a little, Craven, for my sake--eh?

SYLVIA (rising). You're too awful, Leonard. For shame? However, anything to oblige a fellow Ibsenite. I'll bear your affair in mind.

But I think it would be more effective if you got Grace to do it.

CHARTERIS. Think so? Hm! perhaps you're right.

PAGE BOY (outside as before). Dr. Paramore, Dr. Paramore, Dr.

Paramore--

SYLVIA. They ought to get that boy's voice properly cultivated: it's a disgrace to the club. (She goes into the recess on Ibsen's left. The page enters carrying the British Medical Journal.)

CHARTERIS (calling to the page). Dr. Paramore is in the dining room.

PAGE BOY. Thank you, sir. (He is about to go into the dining room when Sylvia swoops on him.)

SYLVIA. Here: where are you taking that paper? It belongs to this room.

PAGE BOY. It's Dr. Paramore's particular orders, miss. The British Medical Journal has always to be brought to him dreckly it comes.

SYLVIA. What cheek? Charteris: oughtn't we to stop this on principle?

CHARTERIS. Certainly not. Principle's the poorest reason I know for making yourself nasty.

SYLVIA. Bosh! Ibsen!

CHARTERIS (to the page). Off with you, my boy: Dr. Paramore's waiting breathless with expectation.

PAGE BOY (seriously). Indeed, sir. (He hurries off.)

CHARTERIS. That boy will make his way in this country. He has no sense of humour. (Grace comes in. Her dress, very convenient and businesslike, is made to please herself and serve her own purposes without the slightest regard to fashion, though by no means without a careful concern for her personal elegance. She enters briskly, like an habitually busy woman.)

SYLVIA (running to her). Here you are at last Tranfield, old girl.

I've been waiting for you this last hour. I'm starving.

GRACE. All right, dear. (To Charteris.) Did you get my letter?

CHARTERIS. Yes. I wish you wouldn't write on those confounded blue letter cards.

SYLVIA (to Grace). Shall I go down first and secure a table?

CHARTERIS (taking the reply out of Grace's mouth). Do, old boy.

SYLVIA. Don't be too long. (She goes into the dining room.)

GRACE. Well?

CHARTERIS. I'm afraid to face you after last night. Can you imagine a more horrible scene? Don't you hate the very sight of me after it?

GRACE. Oh, no.

CHARTERIS. Then you ought to. Ugh! it was hideous--an insult--an outrage. A nice end to all my plans for making you happy--for making you an exception to all the women who swear I have made them miserable!

GRACE (sitting down placidly). I am not at all miserable. I'm sorry; but I shan't break my heart.

CHARTERIS. No: yours is a thoroughbred heart: you don't scream and cry every time it's pinched. That's why you are the only possible woman for me.

GRACE (shaking her head). Not now. Never any more.

CHARTERIS. Never! What do you mean?

GRACE. What I say, Leonard.

CHARTERIS. Jilted again! The fickleness of women I love is only equaled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me. Well, well! I see how it is, Grace: you can't get over that horrible scene last night. Imagine her saying I had kissed her within the last two days!

GRACE (rising eagerly). Was that not true?

CHARTERIS. True! No: a thumping lie.

GRACE. Oh, I'm so glad. That was the only thing that really hurt me.

CHARTERIS. Just why she said it. How adorable of you to care! My darling. (He seizes her hands and presses them to his breast.)

GRACE. Remember! it's all broken off.

CHARTERIS. Ah yes: you have my heart in your hands. Break it. Throw my happiness out of the window.

GRACE. Oh, Leonard, does your happiness really depend on me?

CHARTERIS (tenderly). Absolutely. (She beams with delight. A sudden revulsion comes to him at the sight: he recoils, dropping her hands and crying) Ah no: why should I lie to you? (He folds his arms and adds firmly) My happiness depends on n.o.body but myself. I can do without you.

GRACE (nerving herself). So you shall. Thank you for the truth. Now _I_ will tell you the truth.

CHARTERIS (unfolding his arms and again recoiling). No, please. Don't.

As a philosopher, it's my business to tell other people the truth; but it's not their business to tell it to me. I don't like it: it hurts.