What Every Woman Knows Part 29

JOHN [the inspiration]. AM I a strong man?

MAGGIE. You? Of course you are. And self-made. Has anybody ever helped you in the smallest way?

JOHN [thinking it out again]. No, n.o.body.

MAGGIE. Not even Lady Sybil?

JOHN. I'm beginning to doubt it. It's very curious, though, Maggie, that this speech should be disappointing.

MAGGIE. It's just that Mr. Venables hasn't the brains to see how good it is.

JOHN. That must be it. [But he is too good a man to rest satisfied with this.] No, Maggie, it's not. Somehow I seem to have lost my neat way of saying things.

MAGGIE [almost cooing]. It will come back to you.

JOHN [forlorn]. If you knew how I've tried.

MAGGIE [cautiously]. Maybe if you were to try again; and I'll just come and sit beside you, and knit. I think the click of the needles sometimes put you in the mood.

JOHN. Hardly that; and yet many a Shandism have I knocked off while you were sitting beside me knitting. I suppose it was the quietness.

MAGGIE. Very likely.

JOHN [with another inspiration]. Maggie!

MAGGIE [again]. What is it, John?

JOHN. What if it was you that put those queer ideas into my head!

MAGGIE. Me?

JOHN. Without your knowing it, I mean.

MAGGIE. But how?

JOHN. We used to talk bits over; and it may be that you dropped the seed, so to speak.

MAGGIE. John, could it be this, that I sometimes had the idea in a rough womanish sort of way and then you polished it up till it came out a Shandism?

JOHN [slowly slapping his knee]. I believe you've hit it, Maggie: to think that you may have been helping me all the time--and neither of us knew it!

[He has so nearly reached a smile that no one can say what might have happened within the next moment if the COMTESSE had not reappeared.]

COMTESSE. Mr. Venables wishes to see you, Mr. Shand.

JOHN [lost, stolen, or strayed a smile in the making]. Hum!

COMTESSE. He is coming now.

JOHN [grumpy]. Indeed!

COMTESSE [sweetly]. It is about your speech.

JOHN. He has said all he need say on that subject, and more.

COMTESSE [quaking a little]. I think it is about the second speech.

JOHN. What second speech?

[MAGGIE runs to her bag and opens it.]

MAGGIE [horrified]. Comtesse, you have given it to him!

COMTESSE [impudently]. Wasn't I meant to?

JOHN. What is it? What second speech?

MAGGIE. Cruel, cruel. [Willing to go on her knees] You had left the first draft of your speech at home, John, and I brought it here with--with a few little things I've added myself.

JOHN [a seven-footer]. What's that?

MAGGIE [four foot ten at most]. Just trifles--things I was to suggest to you--while I was knitting--and then, if you liked any of them you could have polished them--and turned them into something good. John, John--and now she has shown it to Mr. Venables.

JOHN [thundering]. As my work, Comtesse?

[But the COMTESSE is not of the women who are afraid of thunder.]

MAGGIE. It is your work--nine-tenths of it.

JOHN [in the black cap]. You presumed, Maggie Shand! Very well, then, here he comes, and now we'll see to what extent you've helped me.

VENABLES. My dear fellow. My dear Shand, I congratulate you. Give me your hand.

JOHN. The speech?

VENABLES. You have improved it out of knowledge. It is the same speech, but those new touches make all the difference. [JOHN sits down heavily.]

Mrs. Shand, be proud of him.

MAGGIE. I am. I am, John.

COMTESSE. You always said that his second thoughts were best, Charles.

VENABLES [pleased to be reminded of it]. Didn't I, didn't I? Those delicious little touches! How good that is, Shand, about the flowing tide.

COMTESSE. The flowing tide?

VENABLES. In the first speech it was something like this--'Gentlemen, the Opposition are calling to you to vote for them and the flowing tide, but I solemnly warn you to beware lest the flowing tide does not engulf you.' The second way is much better.

COMTESSE. What is the second way, Mr. Shand?