ACT IV
The parlor in Cornelius Doyle's house. It communicates with the garden by a half glazed door. The fireplace is at the other side of the room, opposite the door and windows, the architect not having been sensitive to draughts. The table, rescued from the garden, is in the middle; and at it sits Keegan, the central figure in a rather crowded apartment.
Nora, sitting with her back to the fire at the end of the table, is playing backgammon across its corner with him, on his left hand. Aunt Judy, a little further back, sits facing the fire knitting, with her feet on the fender. A little to Keegan's right, in front of the table, and almost sitting on it, is Barney Doran. Half a dozen friends of his, all men, are between him and the open door, supported by others outside. In the corner behind them is the sofa, of mahogany and horsehair, made up as a bed for Broadbent. Against the wall behind Keegan stands a mahogany sideboard. A door leading to the interior of the house is near the fireplace, behind Aunt Judy. There are chairs against the wall, one at each end of the sideboard. Keegan's hat is on the one nearest the inner door; and his stick is leaning against it. A third chair, also against the wall, is near the garden door.
There is a strong contrast of emotional atmosphere between the two sides of the room. Keegan is extraordinarily stern: no game of backgammon could possibly make a man's face so grim. Aunt Judy is quietly busy. Nora it trying to ignore Doran and attend to her game.
On the other hand Doran is reeling in an ecstasy of mischievous mirth which has infected all his friends. They are screaming with laughter, doubled up, leaning on the furniture and against the walls, shouting, screeching, crying.
AUNT JUDY [as the noise lulls for a moment]. Arra hold your noise, Barney. What is there to laugh at?
DORAN. It got its fut into the little hweel—[he is overcome afresh; and the rest collapse again].
AUNT JUDY. Ah, have some sense: you're like a parcel o childher. Nora, hit him a thump on the back: he'll have a fit.
DORAN [with squeezed eyes, exsuflicate with cachinnation] Frens, he sez to dhem outside Doolan's: I'm takin the gintleman that pays the rint for a dhrive.
AUNT JUDY. Who did he mean be that?
DORAN. They call a pig that in England. That's their notion of a joke.
AUNT JUDY. Musha God help them if they can joke no better than that!
DORAN [with renewed symptoms]. Thin—
AUNT JUDY. Ah now don't be tellin it all over and settin yourself off again, Barney.
NORA. You've told us three times, Mr Doran.
DORAN. Well but whin I think of it—!
AUNT JUDY. Then don't think of it, alanna.
DORAN. There was Patsy Farrll in the back sate wi dhe pig between his knees, n me bould English boyoh in front at the machinery, n Larry Doyle in the road startin the injine wid a bed winch. At the first puff of it the pig lep out of its skin and bled Patsy's nose wi dhe ring in its snout. [Roars of laughter: Keegan glares at them]. Before Broadbint knew hwere he was, the pig was up his back and over into his lap; and bedad the poor baste did credit to Corny's thrainin of it; for it put in the fourth speed wid its right crubeen as if it was enthered for the Gordn Bennett.
NORA [reproachfully]. And Larry in front of it and all! It's nothn to laugh at, Mr Doran.
DORAN. Bedad, Miss Reilly, Larry cleared six yards backwards at wan jump if he cleared an inch; and he'd a cleared seven if Doolan's granmother hadn't cotch him in her apern widhout intindin to. [Immense merriment].
AUNT JUDY, Ah, for shame, Barney! the poor old woman! An she was hurt before, too, when she slipped on the stairs.
DORAN. Bedad, ma'am, she's hurt behind now; for Larry bouled her over like a skittle. [General delight at this typical stroke of Irish Rabelaisianism].
NORA. It's well the lad wasn't killed.
DORAN. Faith it wasn't o Larry we were thinkin jus dhen, wi dhe pig takin the main sthreet o Rosscullen on market day at a mile a minnit. Dh ony thing Broadbint could get at wi dhe pig in front of him was a fut brake; n the pig's tail was undher dhat; so that whin he thought he was putn non the brake he was ony squeezin the life out o the pig's tail. The more he put the brake on the more the pig squealed n the fasther he dhruv.
AUNT JUDY. Why couldn't he throw the pig out into the road?
DORAN. Sure he couldn't stand up to it, because he was spanchelled-like between his seat and dhat thing like a wheel on top of a stick between his knees.
AUNT JUDY. Lord have mercy on us!
NORA. I don't know how you can laugh. Do you, Mr Keegan?
KEEGAN [grimly]. Why not? There is danger, destruction, torment! What more do we want to make us merry? Go on, Barney: the last drops of joy are not squeezed from the story yet. Tell us again how our brother was torn asunder.
DORAN [puzzled]. Whose bruddher?
KEEGAN. Mine.
NORA. He means the pig, Mr Doran. You know his way.
DORAN [rising gallantly to the occasion]. Bedad I'm sorry for your poor bruddher, Misther Keegan; but I recommend you to thry him wid a couple o fried eggs for your breakfast tomorrow. It was a case of Excelsior wi dhat ambitious baste; for not content wid jumpin from the back seat into the front wan, he jumped from the front wan into the road in front of the car. And—
KEEGAN. And everybody laughed!
NORA. Don't go over that again, please, Mr Doran.
DORAN. Faith be the time the car went over the poor pig dhere was little left for me or anywan else to go over except wid a knife an fork.
AUNT JUDY. Why didn't Mr Broadbent stop the car when the pig was gone?
DORAN. Stop the car! He might as well ha thried to stop a mad bull. First it went wan way an made fireworks o Molly Ryan's crockery stall; an dhen it slewed round an ripped ten fut o wall out o the corner o the pound. [With enormous enjoyment] Begob, it just tore the town in two and sent the whole dam market to blazes. [Nora offended, rises].
KEEGAN [indignantly]. Sir!
DORAN [quickly]. Savin your presence, Miss Reilly, and Misther Keegan's. Dhere! I won't say anuddher word.
NORA. I'm surprised at you, Mr Doran. [She sits down again].
DORAN [refectively]. He has the divil's own luck, that Englishman, annyway; for when they picked him up he hadn't a scratch on him, barrn hwat the pig did to his cloes. Patsy had two fingers out o jynt; but the smith pulled them sthraight for him. Oh, you never heard such a hullaballoo as there was. There was Molly, cryin Me chaney, me beautyful chaney! n oul Mat shoutin Me pig, me pig! n the polus takin the number o the car, n not a man in the town able to speak for laughin—
KEEGAN [with intense emphasis]. It is hell: it is hell. Nowhere else could such a scene be a burst of happiness for the people.
Cornelius comes in hastily from the garden, pushing his way through the little crowd.
CORNELIUS. Whisht your laughin, boys! Here he is. [He puts his hat on the sideboard, and goes to the fireplace, where he posts himself with his back to the chimneypiece].
AUNT JUDY. Remember your behavior, now.
Everybody becomes silent, solemn, concerned, sympathetic. Broadbent enters, roiled and disordered as to his motoring coat: immensely important and serious as to himself. He makes his way to the end of the table nearest the garden door, whilst Larry, who accompanies him, throws his motoring coat on the sofa bed, and sits down, watching the proceedings.
BROADBENT [taking off his leather cap with dignity and placing it on the table]. I hope you have not been anxious about me.
AUNT JUDY. Deedn we have, Mr Broadbent. It's a mercy you weren't killed.
DORAN. Kilt! It's a mercy dheres two bones of you left houldin together. How dijjescape at all at all? Well, I never thought I'd be so glad to see you safe and sound again. Not a man in the town would say less [murmurs of kindly assent]. Won't you come down to Doolan's and have a dhrop o brandy to take the shock off?
BROADBENT. You're all really too kind; but the shock has quite passed off.
DORAN [jovially]. Never mind. Come along all the same and tell us about it over a frenly glass.
BROADBENT. May I say how deeply I feel the kindness with which I have been overwhelmed since my accident? I can truthfully declare that I am glad it happened, because it has brought out the kindness and sympathy of the Irish character to an extent I had no conception of.
SEVERAL {Oh, sure you're welcome!
PRESENT. {Sure it's only natural.
{Sure you might have been kilt.
A young man, on the point of bursting, hurries out. Barney puts an iron constraint on his features.
BROADBENT. All I can say is that I wish I could drink the health of everyone of you.
DORAN. Dhen come an do it.
BROADBENT [very solemnly]. No: I am a teetotaller.
AUNT JUDY [incredulously]. Arra since when?
BROADBENT. Since this morning, Miss Doyle. I have had a lesson [he looks at Nora significantly] that I shall not forget. It may be that total abstinence has already saved my life; for I was astonished at the steadiness of my nerves when death stared me in the face today. So I will ask you to excuse me. [He collects himself for a speech]. Gentlemen: I hope the gravity of the peril through which we have all passed—for I know that the danger to the bystanders was as great as to the occupants of the car—will prove an earnest of closer and more serious relations between us in the future. We have had a somewhat agitating day: a valuable and innocent animal has lost its life: a public building has been wrecked: an aged and infirm lady has suffered an impact for which I feel personally responsible, though my old friend Mr Laurence Doyle unfortunately incurred the first effects of her very natural resentment. I greatly regret the damage to Mr Patrick Farrell's fingers; and I have of course taken care that he shall not suffer pecuniarily by his mishap. [Murmurs of admiration at his magnanimity, and A Voice "You're a gentleman, sir">[. I am glad to say that Patsy took it like an Irishman, and, far from expressing any vindictive feeling, declared his willingness to break all his fingers and toes for me on the same terms [subdued applause, and "More power to Patsy!">[. Gentlemen: I felt at home in Ireland from the first [rising excitement among his hearers]. In every Irish breast I have found that spirit of liberty [A cheery voice "Hear Hear">[, that instinctive mistrust of the Government [A small pious voice, with intense expression, "God bless you, sir!">[, that love of independence [A defiant voice, "That's it! Independence!">[, that indignant sympathy with the cause of oppressed nationalities abroad [A threatening growl from all: the ground-swell of patriotic passion], and with the resolute assertion of personal rights at home, which is all but extinct in my own country. If it were legally possible I should become a naturalized Irishman; and if ever it be my good fortune to represent an Irish constituency in parliament, it shall be my first care to introduce a Bill legalizing such an operation. I believe a large section of the Liberal party would avail themselves of it. [Momentary scepticism]. I do. [Convulsive cheering]. Gentlemen: I have said enough. [Cries of "Go on">[. No: I have as yet no right to address you at all on political subjects; and we must not abuse the warmhearted Irish hospitality of Miss Doyle by turning her sittingroom into a public meeting.
DORAN [energetically]. Three cheers for Tom Broadbent, the future member for Rosscullen!
AUNT JUDY [waving a half knitted sock]. Hip hip hurray!
The cheers are given with great heartiness, as it is by this time, for the more humorous spirits present, a question of vociferation or internal rupture.
BROADBENT. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, friends.
NORA [whispering to Doran]. Take them away, Mr Doran [Doran nods].
DORAN. Well, good evenin, Mr Broadbent; an may you never regret the day you wint dhrivin wid Halligan's pig! [They shake hands]. Good evenin, Miss Doyle.
General handshaking, Broadbent shaking hands with everybody effusively. He accompanies them to the garden and can be heard outside saying Goodnight in every inflexion known to parliamentary candidates. Nora, Aunt Judy, Keegan, Larry, and Cornelius are left in the parlor. Larry goes to the threshold and watches the scene in the garden.
NORA. It's a shame to make game of him like that. He's a gradle more good in him than Barney Doran.
CORNELIUS. It's all up with his candidature. He'll be laughed out o the town.
LARRY [turning quickly from the doorway]. Oh no he won't: he's not an Irishman. He'll never know they're laughing at him; and while they're laughing he'll win the seat.
CORNELIUS. But he can't prevent the story getting about.
LARRY. He won't want to. He'll tell it himself as one of the most providential episodes in the history of England and Ireland.
AUNT JUDY. Sure he wouldn't make a fool of himself like that.
LARRY. Are you sure he's such a fool after all, Aunt Judy? Suppose you had a vote! which would you rather give it to? the man that told the story of Haffigan's pig Barney Doran's way or Broadbent's way?
AUNT JUDY. Faith I wouldn't give it to a man at all. It's a few women they want in parliament to stop their foolish blather.
BROADBENT [bustling into the room, and taking off his damaged motoring overcoat, which he put down on the sofa]. Well, that's over. I must apologize for making that speech, Miss Doyle; but they like it, you know. Everything helps in electioneering.
Larry takes the chair near the door; draws it near the table; and sits astride it, with his elbows folded on the back.
AUNT JUDY. I'd no notion you were such an orator, Mr Broadbent.
BROADBENT. Oh, it's only a knack. One picks it up on the platform. It stokes up their enthusiasm.
AUNT JUDY. Oh, I forgot. You've not met Mr Keegan. Let me introjooce you.
BROADBENT [shaking hands effusively]. Most happy to meet you, Mr Keegan. I have heard of you, though I have not had the pleasure of shaking your hand before. And now may I ask you—for I value no man's opinion more—what you think of my chances here.
KEEGAN [coldly]. Your chances, sir, are excellent. You will get into parliament.
BROADBENT [delighted]. I hope so. I think so. [Fluctuating] You really think so? You are sure you are not allowing your enthusiasm for our principles to get the better of your judgment?
KEEGAN. I have no enthusiasm for your principles, sir. You will get into parliament because you want to get into it badly enough to be prepared to take the necessary steps to induce the people to vote for you. That is how people usually get into that fantastic assembly.
BROADBENT [puzzled]. Of course. [Pause]. Quite so. [Pause]. Er—yes. [Buoyant again] I think they will vote for me. Eh? Yes?
AUNT JUDY. Arra why shouldn't they? Look at the people they DO vote for!
BROADBENT [encouraged]. That's true: that's very true. When I see the windbags, the carpet-baggers, the charlatans, the—the—the fools and ignoramuses who corrupt the multitude by their wealth, or seduce them by spouting balderdash to them, I cannot help thinking that an honest man with no humbug about him, who will talk straight common sense and take his stand on the solid ground of principle and public duty, must win his way with men of all classes.
KEEGAN [quietly]. Sir: there was a time, in my ignorant youth, when I should have called you a hypocrite.
BROADBENT [reddening]. A hypocrite!
NORA [hastily]. Oh I'm sure you don't think anything of the sort, Mr Keegan.
BROADBENT [emphatically]. Thank you, Miss Reilly: thank you.
CORNELIUS [gloomily]. We all have to stretch it a bit in politics: hwat's the use o pretendin we don't?
BROADBENT [stiffly]. I hope I have said or done nothing that calls for any such observation, Mr Doyle. If there is a vice I detest—or against which my whole public life has been a protest—it is the vice of hypocrisy. I would almost rather be inconsistent than insincere.
KEEGAN. Do not be offended, sir: I know that you are quite sincere. There is a saying in the Scripture which runs—so far as the memory of an oldish man can carry the words—Let not the right side of your brain know what the left side doeth. I learnt at Oxford that this is the secret of the Englishman's strange power of making the best of both worlds.
BROADBENT. Surely the text refers to our right and left hands. I am somewhat surprised to hear a member of your Church quote so essentially Protestant a document as the Bible; but at least you might quote it accurately.
LARRY. Tom: with the best intentions you're making an ass of yourself. You don't understand Mr Keegan's peculiar vein of humor.
BROADBENT [instantly recovering his confidence]. Ah! it was only your delightful Irish humor, Mr Keegan. Of course, of course. How stupid of me! I'm so sorry. [He pats Keegan consolingly on the back]. John Bull's wits are still slow, you see. Besides, calling me a hypocrite was too big a joke to swallow all at once, you know.
KEEGAN. You must also allow for the fact that I am mad.
NORA. Ah, don't talk like that, Mr Keegan.
BROADBENT [encouragingly]. Not at all, not at all. Only a whimsical Irishman, eh?
LARRY. Are you really mad, Mr Keegan?
AUNT JUDY [shocked]. Oh, Larry, how could you ask him such a thing?
LARRY. I don't think Mr Keegan minds. [To Keegan] What's the true version of the story of that black man you confessed on his deathbed?
KEEGAN. What story have you heard about that?
LARRY. I am informed that when the devil came for the black heathen, he took off your head and turned it three times round before putting it on again; and that your head's been turned ever since.
NORA [reproachfully]. Larry!
KEEGAN [blandly]. That is not quite what occurred. [He collects himself for a serious utterance: they attend involuntarily]. I heard that a black man was dying, and that the people were afraid to go near him. When I went to the place I found an elderly Hindoo, who told me one of those tales of unmerited misfortune, of cruel ill luck, of relentless persecution by destiny, which sometimes wither the commonplaces of consolation on the lips of a priest. But this man did not complain of his misfortunes. They were brought upon him, he said, by sins committed in a former existence. Then, without a word of comfort from me, he died with a clear-eyed resignation that my most earnest exhortations have rarely produced in a Christian, and left me sitting there by his bedside with the mystery of this world suddenly revealed to me.
BROADBENT. That is a remarkable tribute to the liberty of conscience enjoyed by the subjects of our Indian Empire.
LARRY. No doubt; but may we venture to ask what is the mystery of this world?
KEEGAN. This world, sir, is very clearly a place of torment and penance, a place where the fool flourishes and the good and wise are hated and persecuted, a place where men and women torture one another in the name of love; where children are scourged and enslaved in the name of parental duty and education; where the weak in body are poisoned and mutilated in the name of healing, and the weak in character are put to the horrible torture of imprisonment, not for hours but for years, in the name of justice. It is a place where the hardest toil is a welcome refuge from the horror and tedium of pleasure, and where charity and good works are done only for hire to ransom the souls of the spoiler and the sybarite. Now, sir, there is only one place of horror and torment known to my religion; and that place is hell. Therefore it is plain to me that this earth of ours must be hell, and that we are all here, as the Indian revealed to me—perhaps he was sent to reveal it to me to expiate crimes committed by us in a former existence.
AUNT JUDY [awestruck]. Heaven save us, what a thing to say!
CORNELIUS [sighing]. It's a queer world: that's certain.
BROADBENT. Your idea is a very clever one, Mr Keegan: really most brilliant: I should never have thought of it. But it seems to me—if I may say so—that you are overlooking the fact that, of the evils you describe, some are absolutely necessary for the preservation of society, and others are encouraged only when the Tories are in office.
LARRY. I expect you were a Tory in a former existence; and that is why you are here.
BROADBENT [with conviction]. Never, Larry, never. But leaving politics out of the question, I find the world quite good enough for me: rather a jolly place, in fact.
KEEGAN [looking at him with quiet wonder]. You are satisfied?
BROADBENT. As a reasonable man, yes. I see no evils in the world—except, of course, natural evils—that cannot be remedied by freedom, self-government, and English institutions. I think so, not because I am an Englishman, but as a matter of common sense.
KEEGAN. You feel at home in the world, then?
BROADBENT. Of course. Don't you?
KEEGAN [from the very depths of his nature]. No.
BROADBENT [breezily]. Try phosphorus pills. I always take them when my brain is overworked. I'll give you the address in Oxford Street.
KEEGAN [enigmatically: rising]. Miss Doyle: my wandering fit has come on me: will you excuse me?
AUNT JUDY. To be sure: you know you can come in n nout as you like.
KEEGAN. We can finish the game some other time, Miss Reilly. [He goes for his hat and stick.
NORA. No: I'm out with you [she disarranges the pieces and rises]. I was too wicked in a former existence to play backgammon with a good man like you.
AUNT JUDY [whispering to her]. Whisht, whisht, child! Don't set him back on that again.
KEEGAN [to Nora]. When I look at you, I think that perhaps Ireland is only purgatory, after all. [He passes on to the garden door].
NORA. Galong with you!
BROADBENT [whispering to Cornelius]. Has he a vote?
CORNELIUS [nodding]. Yes. An there's lots'll vote the way he tells them.
KEEGAN [at the garden door, with gentle gravity]. Good evening, Mr Broadbent. You have set me thinking. Thank you.
BROADBENT [delighted, hurrying across to him to shake hands]. No, really? You find that contact with English ideas is stimulating, eh?
KEEGAN. I am never tired of hearing you talk, Mr Broadbent.
BROADBENT [modestly remonstrating]. Oh come! come!
KEEGAN. Yes, I assure you. You are an extremely interesting man. [He goes out].
BROADBENT [enthusiastically]. What a nice chap! What an intelligent, interesting fellow! By the way, I'd better have a wash. [He takes up his coat and cap, and leaves the room through the inner door].
Nora returns to her chair and shuts up the backgammon board.
AUNT JUDY. Keegan's very queer to-day. He has his mad fit on him.
CORNELIUS [worried and bitter]. I wouldn't say but he's right after all. It's a contrairy world. [To Larry]. Why would you be such a fool as to let him take the seat in parliament from you?
LARRY [glancing at Nora]. He will take more than that from me before he's done here.
CORNELIUS. I wish he'd never set foot in my house, bad luck to his fat face! D'ye think he'd lend me 300 pounds on the farm, Larry? When I'm so hard up, it seems a waste o money not to mortgage it now it's me own.
LARRY. I can lend you 300 pounds on it.
CORNELIUS. No, no: I wasn't putn in for that. When I die and leave you the farm I should like to be able to feel that it was all me own, and not half yours to start with. Now I'll take me oath Barney Doarn's goin to ask Broadbent to lend him 500 pounds on the mill to put in a new hweel; for the old one'll harly hol together. An Haffigan can't sleep with covetn that corner o land at the foot of his medda that belongs to Doolan. He'll have to mortgage to buy it. I may as well be first as last. D'ye think Broadbent'd len me a little?
LARRY. I'm quite sure he will.
CORNELIUS. Is he as ready as that? Would he len me five hunderd, d'ye think?
LARRY. He'll lend you more than the land'll ever be worth to you; so for Heaven's sake be prudent.
CORNELIUS [judicially]. All right, all right, me son: I'll be careful. I'm goin into the office for a bit. [He withdraws through the inner door, obviously to prepare his application to Broadbent].
AUNT JUDY [indignantly]. As if he hadn't seen enough o borryin when he was an agent without beginnin borryin himself! [She rises]. I'll bory him, so I will. [She puts her knitting on the table and follows him out, with a resolute air that bodes trouble for Cornelius].
Larry and Nora are left together for the first time since his arrival. She looks at him with a smile that perishes as she sees him aimlessly rocking his chair, and reflecting, evidently not about her, with his lips pursed as if he were whistling. With a catch in her throat she takes up Aunt Judy's knitting, and makes a pretence of going on with it.
NORA. I suppose it didn't seem very long to you.
LARRY [starting]. Eh? What didn't?
NORA. The eighteen years you've been away.
LARRY. Oh, that! No: it seems hardly more than a week. I've been so busy—had so little time to think.
NORA. I've had nothin else to do but think.
LARRY. That was very bad for you. Why didn't you give it up? Why did you stay here?
NORA. Because nobody sent for me to go anywhere else, I suppose. That's why.
LARRY. Yes: one does stick frightfully in the same place, unless some external force comes and routs one out. [He yawns slightly; but as she looks up quickly at him, he pulls himself together and rises with an air of waking up and getting to work cheerfully to make himself agreeable]. And how have you been all this time?
NORA. Quite well, thank you.
LARRY. That's right. [Suddenly finding that he has nothing else to say, and being ill at ease in consequence, he strolls about the room humming a certain tune from Offenbach's Whittington].
NORA [struggling with her tears]. Is that all you have to say to me, Larry?
LARRY. Well, what is there to say? You see, we know each other so well.
NORA LARRY. I couldn't help it. [She looks up affectionately]. Tom made me. [She looks down again quickly to conceal the effect of this blow. He whistles another stave; then resumes]. I had a sort of dread of returning to Ireland. I felt somehow that my luck would turn if I came back. And now here I am, none the worse. NORA. Praps it's a little dull for you. LARRY. No: I haven't exhausted the interest of strolling about the old places and remembering and romancing about them. NORA [hopefully]. Oh! You DO remember the places, then? LARRY. Of course. They have associations. NORA [not doubting that the associations are with her]. I suppose so. LARRY. M'yes. I can remember particular spots where I had long fits of thinking about the countries I meant to get to when I escaped from Ireland. America and London, and sometimes Rome and the east. NORA [deeply mortified]. Was that all you used to be thinking about? LARRY. Well, there was precious little else to think about here, my dear Nora, except sometimes at sunset, when one got maudlin and called Ireland Erin, and imagined one was remembering the days of old, and so forth. [He whistles Let Erin Remember]. NORA. Did jever get a letter I wrote you last February? LARRY. Oh yes; and I really intended to answer it. But I haven't had a moment; and I knew you wouldn't mind. You see, I am so afraid of boring you by writing about affairs you don't understand and people you don't know! And yet what else have I to write about? I begin a letter; and then I tear it up again. The fact is, fond as we are of one another, Nora, we have so little in common—I mean of course the things one can put in a letter—that correspondence is apt to become the hardest of hard work. NORA. Yes: it's hard for me to know anything about you if you never tell me anything. LARRY [pettishly]. Nora: a man can't sit down and write his life day by day when he's tired enough with having lived it. NORA. I'm not blaming you. LARRY [looking at her with some concern]. You seem rather out of spirits. [Going closer to her, anxiously and tenderly] You haven't got neuralgia, have you? NORA. No. LARRY [reassured]. I get a touch of it sometimes when I am below par. [absently, again strolling about] Yes, yes. [He begins to hum again, and soon breaks into articulate melody]. Though summer smiles on here for ever, [Nora puts down the knitting and stares at him]. O wind that blows across the sea. [With much expression] Tell England I'll forget her ne-e-e-e-ver [Here the melody soars out of his range. He continues falsetto, but changes the tune to Let Erin Remember]. I'm afraid I'm boring you, Nora, though you're too kind to say so. NORA. Are you wanting to get back to England already? LARRY. Not at all. Not at all. NORA. That's a queer song to sing to me if you're not. LARRY. The song! Oh, it doesn't mean anything: it's by a German Jew, like most English patriotic sentiment. Never mind me, my dear: go on with your work; and don't let me bore you. NORA [bitterly]. Rosscullen isn't such a lively place that I am likely to be bored by you at our first talk together after eighteen years, though you don't seem to have much to say to me after all. LARRY. Eighteen years is a devilish long time, Nora. Now if it had been eighteen minutes, or even eighteen months, we should be able to pick up the interrupted thread, and chatter like two magpies. But as it is, I have simply nothing to say; and you seem to have less. NORA. I—[her tears choke her; but the keeps up appearances desperately]. LARRY [quite unconscious of his cruelty]. In a week or so we shall be quite old friends again. Meanwhile, as I feel that I am not making myself particularly entertaining, I'll take myself off. Tell Tom I've gone for a stroll over the hill. NORA. You seem very fond of Tom, as you call him. LARRY [the triviality going suddenly out of his voice]. Yes I'm fond of Tom. NORA. Oh, well, don't let me keep you from him. LARRY. I know quite well that my departure will be a relief. Rather a failure, this first meeting after eighteen years, eh? Well, never mind: these great sentimental events always are failures; and now the worst of it's over anyhow. [He goes out through the garden door]. Nora, left alone, struggles wildly to save herself from breaking down, and then drops her face on the table and gives way to a convulsion of crying. Her sobs shake her so that she can hear nothing; and she has no suspicion that she is no longer alone until her head and breast are raised by Broadbent, who, returning newly washed and combed through the inner door, has seen her condition, first with surprise and concern, and then with an emotional disturbance that quite upsets him. BROADBENT. Miss Reilly. Miss Reilly. What's the matter? Don't cry: I can't stand it: you mustn't cry. [She makes a choked effort to speak, so painful that he continues with impulsive sympathy] No: don't try to speak: it's all right now. Have your cry out: never mind me: trust me. [Gathering her to him, and babbling consolatorily] Cry on my chest: the only really comfortable place for a woman to cry is a man's chest: a real man, a real friend. A good broad chest, eh? not less than forty-two inches—no: don't fuss: never mind the conventions: we're two friends, aren't we? Come now, come, come! It's all right and comfortable and happy now, isn't it? NORA [through her tears]. Let me go. I want me hankerchief. BROADBENT [holding her with one arm and producing a large silk handkerchief from his breast pocket]. Here's a handkerchief. Let me [he dabs her tears dry with it]. Never mind your own: it's too small: it's one of those wretched little cambric handkerchiefs— NORA [sobbing]. Indeed it's a common cotton one. BROADBENT. Of course it's a common cotton one—silly little cotton one—not good enough for the dear eyes of Nora Cryna— NORA [spluttering into a hysterical laugh and clutching him convulsively with her fingers while she tries to stifle her laughter against his collar bone]. Oh don't make me laugh: please don't make me laugh. BROADBENT [terrified]. I didn't mean to, on my soul. What is it? What is it? NORA. Nora Creena, Nora Creena. BROADBENT [patting her]. Yes, yes, of course, Nora Creena, Nora acushla [he makes cush rhyme to plush]. NORA. Acushla [she makes cush rhyme to bush]. BROADBENT. Oh, confound the language! Nora darling—my Nora—the Nora I love— NORA [shocked into propriety]. You mustn't talk like that to me. BROADBENT [suddenly becoming prodigiously solemn and letting her go]. No, of course not. I don't mean it—at least I do mean it; but I know it's premature. I had no right to take advantage of your being a little upset; but I lost my self-control for a moment. NORA [wondering at him]. I think you're a very kindhearted man, Mr Broadbent; but you seem to me to have no self-control at all [she turns her face away with a keen pang of shame and adds] no more than myself. BROADBENT [resolutely]. Oh yes, I have: you should see me when I am really roused: then I have TREMENDOUS self-control. Remember: we have been alone together only once before; and then, I regret to say, I was in a disgusting state. NORA. Ah no, Mr Broadbent: you weren't disgusting. BROADBENT [mercilessly]. Yes I was: nothing can excuse it: perfectly beastly. It must have made a most unfavorable impression on you. NORA. Oh, sure it's all right. Say no more about that. BROADBENT. I must, Miss Reilly: it is my duty. I shall not detain you long. May I ask you to sit down. [He indicates her chair with oppressive solemnity. She sits down wondering. He then, with the same portentous gravity, places a chair for himself near her; sits down; and proceeds to explain]. First, Miss Reilly, may I say that I have tasted nothing of an alcoholic nature today. NORA. It doesn't seem to make as much difference in you as it would in an Irishman, somehow. BROADBENT. Perhaps not. Perhaps not. I never quite lose myself. NORA [consolingly]. Well, anyhow, you're all right now. BROADBENT [fervently]. Thank you, Miss Reilly: I am. Now we shall get along. [Tenderly, lowering his voice] Nora: I was in earnest last night. [Nora moves as if to rise]. No: one moment. You must not think I am going to press you for an answer before you have known me for 24 hours. I am a reasonable man, I hope; and I am prepared to wait as long as you like, provided you will give me some small assurance that the answer will not be unfavorable. NORA. How could I go back from it if I did? I sometimes think you're not quite right in your head, Mr Broadbent, you say such funny things. BROADBENT. Yes: I know I have a strong sense of humor which sometimes makes people doubt whether I am quite serious. That is why I have always thought I should like to marry an Irishwoman. She would always understand my jokes. For instance, you would understand them, eh? NORA [uneasily]. Mr Broadbent, I couldn't. BROADBENT [soothingly]. Wait: let me break this to you gently, Miss Reilly: hear me out. I daresay you have noticed that in speaking to you I have been putting a very strong constraint on myself, so as to avoid wounding your delicacy by too abrupt an avowal of my feelings. Well, I feel now that the time has come to be open, to be frank, to be explicit. Miss Reilly: you have inspired in me a very strong attachment. Perhaps, with a woman's intuition, you have already guessed that. NORA [rising distractedly]. Why do you talk to me in that unfeeling nonsensical way? BROADBENT [rising also, much astonished]. Unfeeling! Nonsensical! NORA. Don't you know that you have said things to me that no man ought to say unless—unless—[she suddenly breaks down again and hides her face on the table as before] Oh, go away from me: I won't get married at all: what is it but heartbreak and disappointment? BROADBENT [developing the most formidable symptoms of rage and grief]. Do you mean to say that you are going to refuse me? that you don't care for me? NORA [looking at him in consternation]. Oh, don't take it to heart, Mr Br—
Though not a leaf falls from the tree,
Tell England I'll forget her never,
O wind that blows acro-oss—