A LETTER AND A PARAGRAPH.
BY H. C. BUNNER.
I.
THE LETTER.
New York, Nov. 16, 1883.
My dear Will:—
You cannot be expected to remember it, but this is the fifth anniversary of my wedding-day, and to-morrow—it will be to-morrow before this letter is closed—is my birthday—my fortieth. My head is full of those thoughts which the habit of my life moves me to put on paper, where I can best express them; and yet which must be written for only the friendliest of eyes. It is not the least of my happiness in this life that I have one friend to whom I can unlock my heart as I can to you.
The wife has just been putting your namesake to sleep. Don’t infer that, even on the occasion of this family feast, he has been allowed to sit up until half past eleven. He went to bed properly enough, with a tear or two, at eight; but when his mother stole into his room just now, after her custom, I heard his small voice raised in drowsy inquiry; and I followed her, and slipped the curtain of the doorway aside, and looked. But I did not go into the room.
The shaded lamp was making a yellow glory in one spot—the head of the little brass crib where my wife knelt by my boy. I saw the little face, so like hers, turned up to her. There was a smile on it that I knew was a reflection of hers. He was winking in a merry half-attempt to keep awake; but wakefulness was slipping away from him under the charm of that smile that I could not see. His brown eyes closed, and opened for an instant, and closed again as the tender, happy hush of a child’s sleep settled down upon him, and he was gone where we in our heavier slumbers shall hardly follow him. Then, before I could see my wife’s face as she bent and kissed him, I let the curtain fall, and crept back here, to sit by the last of the fire, and see that sacred sight again with the spiritual eyes, and to dream wonderingly over the unspeakable happiness that has in some mysterious way come to me, undeserving.
I tell you, Will, that moment was to me like one of those moments of waking that we know in childhood, when we catch the going of a dream too subtly sweet to belong to this earth—a glad vision, gone before our eyes can open wide; not to be figured into any earthly idea, leaving in its passage a joy so high and fine that the poets tell us it is a memory of some heaven from which our young souls are yet fresh.
You can understand how it is that I find it hard to realize that there can be such things in my life; for you know what that life was up to a few years ago. I am like a man who has spent his first thirty years in a cave. It takes more than a decade above ground to make him quite believe in the sun and the blue of the sky.
I was sitting just now before the hearth, with my feet in the bearskin rug you sent us two Christmases ago. The light of the low wood fire was chasing the shadows around the room, over my books and my pictures, and all the fine and gracious luxuries with which I may now make my eyes and my heart glad, and pamper the tastes that grow with feeding. I was taking count, so to speak, of my prosperity—the material treasures, the better treasure that I find in such portion of fame as the world has allotted me, and the treasure of treasures across the threshold of the next room—in the next room? No—there, here, in every room, in every corner of the house, filling it with peace, is the gentle and holy spirit of love.
As I sat and thought, my mind went back to the day that you and I first met, twenty-two years ago—twenty-two in February next. In twenty-two years more I could not forget that hideous first day in the city room of the Morning Record. I can see the great gloomy room, with its meagre gas-jets lighting up, here and there, a pale face at a desk, and bringing out in ghastly spots the ugliness of the ink-smeared walls. A winter rain was pouring down outside. I could feel its chill and damp in the room, though little of it was to be seen through the grimy window-panes. The composing-room in the rear sent a smell of ink and benzine to permeate the moist atmosphere. The rumble and shiver of the great presses printing the weekly came up from below. I sat there in my wet clothes and waited for my first assignment. I was eighteen, poor as a church mouse, green, desperately hopeful after a boy’s fashion, and with nothing in my head but the Latin and Greek of my one single year at college. My spirit had sunk down far out of sight. My heart beat nervously at every sound of that awful city editor’s voice, as he called up his soldiers one by one and assigned them to duty. I could only silently pray that he would “give me an easy one,” and that I should not disgrace myself in the doing of it. By Jove, Will, what an old martinet Baldwin was, for all his good heart! Do you remember that sharp, crackling voice of his, and the awful “Be brief! be brief!” that always drove all capacity for condensation out of a man’s head, and set him to stammering out his story with wordy incoherence? Baldwin is on the Record still. I wonder what poor devil is trembling at this hour under that disconcerting adjuration.
A wretched day that was! The hours went slow as grief. Smeary little bare-armed fiends trotted in from the composing-room and out again, bearing fluttering galley-proofs. Bedraggled, hollow-eyed men came in from the streets and set their soaked umbrellas to steam against the heater, and passed into the lion’s den to feed him with news, and were sent out again to take up their half-cooked umbrellas and go forth to forage for more. Everyone, I thought, gave me one brief glance of contempt and curiosity, and put me out of his thoughts. Everyone had some business—everyone but me. The men who had been waiting with me were called up one by one and detailed to work. I was left alone.
Then a new horror came to torture my nervously active imagination. Had my superior officer forgotten his new recruit? Or could he find no task mean enough for my powers? This filled me at first with a sinking shame, and then with a hot rage and sense of wrong. Why should he thus slight me? Had I not a right to be tried, at least? Was there any duty he could find that I would not perform or die? I would go to him and tell him that I had come there to work; and would make him give me the work. No, I should simply be snubbed, and sent to my seat like a school-boy, or perhaps discharged on the spot. I must bear my humiliation in silence.
I looked up and saw you entering, with your bright, ruddy boy’s face shining with wet, beaming a greeting to all the room. In my soul I cursed you, at a venture, for your lightheartedness and your look of cheery self-confidence. What a vast stretch of struggle and success set you above me—you, the reporter, above me, the novice! And just then came the awful summons—“Barclay! Barclay!”—I shall hear that strident note at the judgment day. I went in and got my orders, and came out with them, all in a sort of daze that must have made Baldwin think me an idiot. And then you came up to me and scraped acquaintance in a desultory way, to hide your kind intent; and gave me a hint or two as to how to obtain a full account of the biennial meeting of the Post-Pliocene Mineralogical Society, or whatever it was, without diving too deeply into the Post-Pliocene period. I would have fought for you to the death, at that moment.
’Twas a small matter, but the friendship begun in manly and helpful kindness has gone on for twenty-two years in mutual faith and loyalty; and the growth dignifies the seed.
A sturdy growth it was in its sapling days. It was in the late spring that we decided to take the room together in St. Mark’s Place. A big room and a poor room, indeed, on the third story of that “battered caravanserai,” and for twelve long years it held us and our hopes and our despairs and our troubles and our joys.
I don’t think I have forgotten one detail of that room. There is the generous old fireplace, insultingly bricked up by modern poverty, all save the meagre niche that holds our fire—when we can have a fire. There is the great second-hand table—our first purchase—where we sit and work for immortality in the scant intervals of working for life. Your drawer, with the manuscript of your “Concordance of Political Economy,” is to the right. Mine is to the left; it holds the unfinished play, and the poems that might better have been unfinished. There are the two narrow cots—yours to the left of the door as you enter; mine to the right.
How strange that I can see it all so clearly, now that all is different!
Yet I can remember myself coming home at one o’clock at night, dragging my tired feet up those dark, still, tortuous stairs, gripping the shaky baluster for aid. I open the door—I can feel the little old-fashioned brass knob in my palm even now—and I look to the left. Ah, you are already at home and in bed. I need not look toward the table. There is money—a little—in the common treasury; and, in accordance with our regular compact, I know there stand on that table twin bottles of beer, half a loaf of rye bread, and a double palm’s-breadth of Swiss cheese. You are staying your hunger in sleep; for one may not eat until the other comes. I will wake you up, and we shall feast together and talk over the day that is dead and the day that is begun.
Strange, is it not, that I should have some trouble to realize that this is only a memory,—I, with my feet in the bearskin rug that it would have beggared the two of us, or a dozen like us, to purchase in those days. Strange that my mind should be wandering on the crude work of my boyhood and my early manhood. I who have won name and fame, as the world would say. I, to whom young men come for advice and encouragement, as to a tried veteran! Strange that I should be thinking of a time when even your true and tireless friendship could not quench a subtle hunger at my heart, a hunger for a more dear and intimate comradeship. I, with the tenderest of wives scarce out of my sight; even in her sleep she is no further from me than my own soul.
Strangest of all this, that the mad agony of grief, the passion of desolation that came upon me when our long partnership was dissolved for ever, should now be nothing but a memory, like other memories, to be summoned up out of the resting-places of the mind, toyed with, idly questioned, and dismissed with a sigh and a smile! What a real thing it was just ten years ago; what a very present pain! Believe me, Will,—yes, I want you to believe this—that in those first hours of loneliness I could have welcomed death; death would have fallen upon me as calmly as sleep has fallen upon my boy in the room beyond there.
You knew nothing of this then; I suppose you but half believe it now; for our parting was manly enough. I kept as stiff an upper lip as you did, for all there was less hair on it. Perhaps it seems extravagant to you. But there was a deal of difference between our cases. You had turned your pen to money-making, at the call of love; you were going to Stillwater to marry the judge’s daughter, and to become a great land-owner and mayor of Stillwater and millionaire—or what is it now? And much of this you foresaw or hoped for, at least. Hope is something. But for me? I was left in the third-story of a poor lodging-house in St. Mark’s Place, my best friend gone from me; with neither remembrance nor hope of Love to live on, and with my last story back from all the magazines.
We will not talk about it. Let me get back to my pleasant library with the books and the pictures and the glancing fire-light, and me with my feet in your bearskin rug, listening to my wife’s step in the next room.
To your ear, for our communion has been so long and so close that to either one of us the faintest inflection of the other’s voice speaks clearer than formulated words; to your ear there must be something akin to a tone of regret—regret for the old days—in what I have just said. And would it be strange if there were? A poor soldier of fortune who had been set to a man’s work before he had done with his meagre boyhood, who had passed from recruit to the place of a young veteran in that great, hard-fighting, unresting pioneer army of journalism; was he the man, all of a sudden, to stretch his toughened sinews out and let them relax in the glow of the home hearth? Would not his legs begin to twitch for the road; would he not be wild to feel again the rain in his weather-beaten face? Would you think it strange if at night he should toss in his white, soft bed, longing to change it for a blanket on the turf, with the broad procession of sunlit worlds sweeping over his head, beyond the blue spaces of the night? And even if the dear face on the pillow next him were to wake and look at him with reproachful surprise; and even if warm arms drew him back to his new allegiance; would not his heart in dreams go throbbing to the rhythm of the drum or the music of songs sung by the camp-fire?
It was so at the beginning, in the incredible happiness of the first year, and even after the boy’s birth. Do you know, it was months before I could accept that boy as a fact? If, at any moment, he had vanished from my sight, crib and all, I should not have been surprised. I was not sure of him until he began to show his mother’s eyes.
Yes, even in those days some of the old leaven worked in me. I had moments of that old barbaric freedom which we used to rejoice in—that feeling of being answerable to nothing in the world save my own will—the sense of untrammeled, careless power.
Do you remember the night that we walked till sunrise? You remember how hot it was at midnight, when we left the office, and how the moonlight on the statue above the City Hall seemed to invite us fieldward, where no gaslight glared, no torches flickered. So we walked idly northward, through the black, silence-stricken down-town streets; through that feverish, unresting central region that lies between the vileness of Houston Street and the calm and spacious dignity of the brown-stone ways, where the closed and darkened dwellings looked like huge tombs in the pallid light of the moon. We passed the suburban belt of shanties; we passed the garden-girt villas beyond them, and it was from the hill above Spuyten Duyvil that we saw the first color of the morning upon the face of the Palisades.
It would have taken very little in that moment to set us off to tramping the broad earth, for the pure joy of free wayfaring. What was there to hold us back? No tie of home or kin. All we had in the world to leave behind us was some futile scribbling on various sheets of paper. And of that sort of thing both our heads were full enough. I think it was but the veriest chance that, having begun that walk, we did not go on and get our fill of wandering, and ruin our lives.
Well, that same wild, adventurous spirit came upon me now and then. There were times when, for the moment, I forgot that I had a wife and a child. There were times when I remembered them as a burden. Why should I not say this? It is the history of every married man,—at least of every manly man,—though he be married to the best woman in the world. It means no lack of love. It is as unavoidable as the leap of the blood in you that answers a trumpet-call.
At first I was frightened, and fought against it as against something that might grow upon me. I reproached myself for disloyalty in thought. Ah! what need had I to fight? What need had I to choke down rebellious fancies, while my wife’s love was working that miracle that makes two spirits one.
What is it, this union that comes to us as a surprise, and remains for all outside an incommunicable mystery? What is this that makes our unmarried love seem so slight and childish a thing? You and I, who know it, know that it is no mere fruit of intimacy and usage, although in its growth it keeps pace with these. We know that in some subtle way it has been given to a man to see a woman’s soul as he sees his own, and to a woman to look into a man’s heart as if it were, indeed, hers. But the friend who sits at my table, seeing that my wife and I understand each other at a simple meeting of the eyes, makes no more of it than he does of the glance of intelligence which, with close friends, often takes the place of speech. He never dreams of the sweet delight with which we commune together in a language that he cannot understand—that he cannot hear—a language that has no formulated words, feeling answering feeling.
It is not wonderful that I should wish to give expression to the gratitude with which I have seen my life made to blossom thus; my thankfulness for the love which has made me not only a happier, but, I humbly believe, a wiser and a better-minded man. But I know too well the hopelessness of trying to find words to describe what, were I a poet, my best song might but faintly, faintly echo.
I thought I heard a rustle behind me just now. In a little while my wife will come softly into the room, and softly up to where I am sitting, stepping silently across your bearskin rug, and will lay one hand softly on my left shoulder, while the other slips down this arm with which I write, until it falls and closes lightly, yet with loving firmness, on my hand that holds the pen. And I shall say, “Only the last words to Will and his wife, dear.” And she will release my hand, and will lift her own, I think, to caress the patch of gray hair on my temple; it is a way she has, as though it were some pitiful scar, and she will say, “Give them my love, and tell them they must not fail us this Christmas. I want them to see how our Willy has grown.” And when she says “Our Willy,” the hand on my shoulder will instinctively close a little, clingingly; and she will bend her head, and put her face close to mine, and I shall turn to look into her eyes.
Bear with me, my dear Will, until I have told you why I have written this letter and what it means. I have concealed one thing from you for the last six months. I have disease of the heart, and the doctor has told me that I may die at any moment. Somehow, I think—I know the moment is close at hand; I shall soon go to that narrow cot on the right of the door, and I do not believe I shall wake up in the morning with the sun in my eyes, to look across the room and see that its companion is gone.
For I am in the old room, Will, as you know, and it is not ten years since you went away, but two days. The picture that has seemed real to me as I wrote these pages is fading, and the thin gas-jet flickers and sinks as it always did in these first morning hours. I can hear the roar of the last Harlem train swell and sink, and the sharp clink of car-bells break the silence that follows. The wind is gasping and struggling in the chimney, and blowing a white powdery ash down on the hearth. I have just burnt my poems and the play. Both the table drawers are empty now; and soon enough the two empty chairs will stare at each other across the bare table. What a wild dream have I dreamt in all this emptiness! Just now, I thought indeed that it was true. I thought I heard a woman’s step behind me, and I turned—
Peace be with you, Will, in the fullness of your love. I am going to sleep. Perhaps I shall dream it all again, and shall hear that soft footfall when the turn of the night comes, and the pale light through the ragged blind, and the end of a long loneliness.
After I am dead, I wish you to think of me not as I was, but as I wanted to be. I have tried to show you that I have led by your side a happier and dearer life of hope and aspiration than the one you saw. I have tried to leave your memory a picture of me that you will not shrink from calling up when you have a quiet hour and time for thought of the friend whom you knew well; but whom you may, perhaps, know better now that he is dead.
Reginald Barclay.
II.
THE PARAGRAPH.
[From the New York Herald of Nov. 18, 1883.]
Reginald Barclay, a journalist, was found dead in his bed at 15 St. Mark’s Place, yesterday morning. No inquest was held, as Mr. Barclay had been known to be suffering from disease of the heart, and his death was not unexpected. The deceased came originally from Oneida County, and was regarded as a young journalist of considerable promise. He had been for some years on the city staff of the Record, and was the correspondent of several out-of-town papers. He had also contributed to the monthly magazines, occasional poems and short stories, which showed the possession, in some measure, of the imaginative faculty. Mr. Barclay was about thirty years of age, and unmarried.
PLAYING A PART:
A COMEDY FOR AMATEUR ACTING.
BY BRANDER MATTHEWS.
The Scene is a handsomely-furnished parlor, with a general air of home comfort. A curtained window on each side of the central fireplace would light the room if it were not evening, as the lamp on the work-table in the centre of the room informs us. At one side of the work-table is the wife, winding a ball of worsted from a skein which her husband holds in his hands.
He (looking at watch, aside). This wool takes as long to wind up as a bankrupt estate. (Fidgets.)
She. Do keep still, Jack! Stop fidgeting and jumping around.
He. When you pull the string, Jenny, I am always a jumping-jack to dance attendance on you.
She (seriously). Very pretty, indeed! It was true too—once—before we were married: now you lead me a different dance.
He. I am your partner still.
She (sadly). But the figure is always the Ladies’ Chain.
He (aside). If I don’t get away soon I sha’n’t be able to do any work to-night.—(Aloud). What do you mean by that solemn tone?
She. Oh, nothing—nothing of any consequence.
He (aside). We look like two fools acting in private theatricals.
She (finishing ball of worsted). That will do: thank you. Do not let me detain you: I know you are in a hurry.
He. I have my work to do.
She. So it seems; and it takes all day and half the night.
He (rising and going to fireplace). I am working hard for our future happiness.
She (quietly). I should like a little of the happiness now.
He (standing with back to fireplace). Are you unhappy?
She. Oh no—not very.
He. Do you not have everything you wish?
She. Oh yes—except the one thing I want most.
He. Well, my dear, I am at home as much as I can be.
She. So you think I meant you?
He (embarrassed). Well—I did suppose—that—
She. Yes, I used to want you. The days were long enough while you were away, and I waited for your return. Now I have been alone so much that I am getting accustomed to solitude. And I do not really know what it is I do want. I am listless, nervous, good-for-nothing—
He (gallantly). You are good enough for me.
She. You did think so once; and perhaps you would think so again—if you could spare the time to get acquainted with me.
He (surprised). Jenny, are you ill?
She. Not more so than usual. I was bright enough two years ago, when we were married. But for two years I have not lived, I have vegetated; more like a plant than a human being; and even plants require some sunshine.
He (aside). I have never heard her talk like this before. I don’t understand it.—(Aloud.) Why, Jenny, you speak as if I were a cloud over your life.
She. Do I? Well, it does not matter.
He. I try to be a good husband, don’t I?
She (indifferently). As well as you know how, I suppose.
He. Do I deprive you of anything you want?
She (impatiently). Of course you do not.
He. I work hard, I know, but when I go out in the evening now and then—
She (aside). Six nights every week. (Sighing.)
He. I really work. There are husbands who say they are at work when they are at the club playing poker: now I am really working.
She (impatiently). You have no small vices. (Rising.) Is there no work calling you away to-night? Why are you not off?
He (looking at watch). I am a little late, that’s a fact: still, I can do what I have to do if I work like a horse.
She. Have you to draw a conveyance? That is the old joke.
He. This is no joke. It’s a divorce suit.
She (quickly). Is it that Lightfoot person again?
He. It is Mrs. Lightfoot’s case. She is a very fine woman, and her husband has treated her shamefully.
She. Better than the creature deserved, I dare say. You will win her case for her?
He. I shall do my best.
She (sarcastically). No doubt.—(Aside.) I hate that woman! (Crosses the room and sits on sofa on the right of the fireplace.)
He. But the result of a lawsuit is generally a toss-up; and heads do not always win.
She. I wish you luck this time—for her husband’s sake: he’ll be glad to be rid of her. But I doubt it: you can’t get up any sympathy by exhibiting her to the jury: she isn’t good-looking enough.
He (quickly). She’s a very fine woman indeed.
She (aside). How eagerly he defends her!—(Aloud.) She’s a great big, tall, giantess creature, with a face like a wax doll and a head of hair like a Circassian Girl. No juryman will fall in love with her.
He. How often have I told you that Justice does not consider persons! Now, in the eye of the law—
She (interrupting). Do you acknowledge that the law has but one eye and can see only one side?
He. Are you jealous? (Crossing and standing in front of her.)
She. Jealous of this Mrs. Lightfoot? (Laughs.) Ridiculous!
He. I am glad of it, for I think a jealous woman has a very poor opinion of herself.
She (forcibly). And it is her business which takes you out to-night?
He (going toward the left-hand door). I have to go across to the Bar Association to look up some points, and—
She (rising quickly). And you can just send me a cab. I shall go to Mrs. Playfair’s to rehearse again for the private theatricals.
He (annoyed, coming back). But I had asked you to give it up.
She (with growing excitement). And I had almost determined to give it up, but I have changed my mind. That’s a woman’s privilege, isn’t it? I am tired of spending my evenings by myself.
He. Now be reasonable, Jenny: I must work.
She. And I must play—in the private theatricals.
He. But I don’t like private theatricals.
She. Don’t you? I do.
He. And I particularly dislike amateur actors.
She. Do you? I don’t. I like some of them very much; and some of them like me, too.
He. The deuce they do!
She. Tom Thursby and Dick Carey and Harry Wylde were all disputing who should make love to me.
He. Make love to you?
She. In the play—in Husbands and Wives.
He. Do you mean to say that you are going to act on the stage with those brainless idiots?
She (interrupting). Do not call my friends names: it is in bad taste.
He. What will people say when they see my wife pawed and clawed by those fellows?
She. Let them say what they please. Do you think I care for the tittle-tattle of the riffraff of society?
He. But, Jenny—(Brusquely.) Confound it! I have no patience with you!
She. So I have discovered. But you need not lose your temper here, and swear. Go outside and do it, and leave me alone, as I am every evening.
He. You talk as if I ill-treated you.
She (sarcastically). Do I? That is very wicked of me, isn’t it? You take the best possible care of me, you are ever thinking of me, and you never leave my side for a moment. Oh no, you do not ill-treat me—or abuse me—or neglect me (breaking down)—or make me miserable. There is nothing the matter with me, of course. But you never will believe I have a heart until you have broken it! (Sinking on chair, C.)
He (crossing to her). You are excited, I see; still, I must say this is a little too much.
She (starting up). Don’t come near me! (Sarcastically.) Don’t let me keep you from your work (going to door R. 2d E), and don’t fail to send me a cab. At last I revolt against your neglect.
He (indignantly protesting). My neglect? Do you mean to say I neglect you? My conscience does not reproach me.
She (at the door on the right). That’s because you haven’t any! (Exit, slamming door).
He (alone). I never saw her go on that way before. What can be the matter with her? She is not like herself at all: she is low-spirited and nervous. Now, I never could see why women had any nerves. I wonder if she really thinks that I neglect her? I should be sorry, very sorry, if she did. I’ll not go out to-night: I’ll stay at home and have a quiet evening at my own fireside. (Sits in chair in the centre.) I think that will bring her round. I’d like to know what has made her act like this. Has she been reading any sentimental trash, I wonder? (Sees book in work-basket.) Now, here’s some yellow-covered literature. (Takes it up.) Why, it’s that confounded play, Husbands and Wives. Let me see the silly stuff. (Reads:) “My darling, one more embrace, one last, long, loving kiss;” and then he hugs her and kisses her. (Rising.) And she thinks I’ll have her play a part like that? How should I look while that was going on? Can’t she find something else? (At work-table.) Here is another. (Takes up second pamphlet.) No, it is a Guide to the Passions. I fear I need no guide to get into a passion. I doubt if there’s as much hugging and kissing in this as in the other one. (Reads:) “It is impossible to describe all the effects of the various passions, but a few hints are here given as to how the more important may be delineated.” (Spoken.) This is interesting. If ever I have to delineate a passion I shall fall back on this guide. (Reads:) “Love is a—” (Reads hastily and unintelligibly:) “When successful, love authorizes the fervent embrace of the beloved!” The deuce it does! And I find my wife getting instruction from this Devil’s text-book! A little more and I should be jealous. (Looks at book.) Ah, here is jealousy: now let’s see how I ought to feel. (Reads:) “Jealousy is a mixture of passions and—” (Reads hastily and unintelligibly.) Not so bad! I believe I could act up to these instructions. (Jumping up.) And I will! My wife wants acting: she shall have it! She complains of monotony: she shall have variety! “Jealousy is a mixture of passions.” I’ll be jealous: I’ll give her a mixture of passions. I’ll take a leaf out of her book, and I’ll find a cure for these nerves of her’s. I’ll learn my part at once: we’ll have some private theatricals to order. (Walks up and down, studying book.)
She re-renters, with bonnet on and cloak over her arm, and stands in surprise, watching him.
She. You here still?
He. Yes.
She. Have you ordered a cab for me?
He. No.
She. And why not?
He (aside). Now’s my chance. Mixture of passions—I’ll try suspicion first.—(Aloud.) Because I do not approve of the people you are going to meet—these Thursbys and Careys and Wyldes.
She (calmly sitting on sofa). Perhaps you would like to revise my visiting-list, and tell the servant whom I am to receive.
He. You may see what ladies you please—
She (interrupting). Thank you; still, I do not please to see Mrs. Lightfoot.
He (annoyed). I say nothing of her.
She. Oh dear, no! I dare say you keep it as secret as you can.
He (aside). Simple suspicion is useless. What’s next? (Glances in pamphlet:) “Peevish personalities.” I will pass on to peevish personalities.—(Aloud.) Now, these men, these fellows who strut about the stage for an idle hour, who are they? This Tom Thursby, who wanted to make love to you—who is he?
She. Are you going to ask many questions? Is this catechism a long one? If it is, I may as well lay aside my shawl.
He. Who is he, I say, I insist upon knowing.
She. He’s a good enough fellow in his way.
He (sternly). He had best beware how he gets in my way.
She (aside). There’s a great change in his manner: I do not understand it.
He. And this Dick Carey—who is he? (Stalking toward her.)
She (starting up and crossing). Are you trying to frighten me by this violence?
He (aside). It is producing an effect.
She. But I am not afraid of you, if I am a weak woman and you are a strong man.
He (aside). It is going all right.—(Aloud, fiercely.) Answer me at once! Is this Carey married?
She. I believe he is.
He. You believe! Don’t you know? Does his wife act with these strollers? Have you not seen her?
She. I have never seen her. She and her husband are like the two buckets in a well: they never turn up together. They meet only to clash, and one is always throwing cold water on the other.
He. And Harry Wylde! Is he married?
She. Yes; and his wife is always keeping him in hot water.
He. And so he comes to you for consolation?
She (laughing). He needs no consoling: he has always such a flow of spirits.
He. I’ve heard the fellow drank.
She (surprised, aside). Can Jack be jealous? I wish I could think so, for then I might hope he still loved me.
He. And do you suppose I can allow you to associate with these fellows, who all want to make love to you?
She (aside, joyfully). He is jealous! The dear boy!
He (fiercely). Do you think I can permit this, madam?
She (aside). “Madam!” I could hug him for loving me enough to call me “madam” like that. But I must not give in too soon.
He. Have you nothing to say for yourself? Can you find no words to defend yourself, woman?
She (aside). “Woman!” He calls me “woman!” I can forgive him anything now.
He. Are you dumb, woman? Have you naught to say?
She (gleefully, aside). I had no idea I had married an Othello! (She sees the pillow on the sofa, and, crossing to it quietly, hides the pillow behind the sofa.)
He (aside). What did she mean by that?—(Aloud, fiercely.) Do you intend to deny—
She (interrupting). I have nothing to deny, I have nothing to conceal.
He. Do you deny that you confessed these fellows sought to make love to you?
She. I do not deny that. (Mischievously.) But I never thought you would worry about such trifles.
He. Trifles! madam? Trifles, indeed! (Glances in book, and quoting:)
“Trifles light as air
Are to the jealous confirmations strong
As proofs of holy writ.”
She (surprised aside). Where did he get his blank verse?
He (aside). That seemed to tell. I’ll give her some more. (Glancing in pamphlet, and quoting:)
“But, alas, to make me
A fixed figure for the time of scorn
To point his slow, unmoving finger at!”
She (aside, jumping up with indignation). Why, it is Othello he is quoting! He is acting! He is positively playing a part! It is shameful of him! It’s not real jealousy: it’s a sham. Oh, the wretch! But I’ll pay him back! I’ll make him jealous without any make-believe.
He (aside). I’m getting on capitally. I’m making a strong impression: I am rousing her out of her nervousness. I doubt if she will want any more private theatricals now. I don’t think I shall have to repeat the lesson. This Guide to the Passions is a first-rate book: I’ll keep one in the house all the time.
She (aside). If he plays Othello, I can play Iago. I’ll give his jealousy something to feed on. I have no blank verse for him, but I’ll make him blank enough before I am done with him. Oh, the villain!
He (aside). Now let me try threatening. (Glancing in book:) “Pity the sorrows of a poor old man”—I’ve got the wrong place. That’s not threatening—that’s senility. (Turning over page.) Ah, here it is.
She (aside). And he thinks he can jest with a woman’s heart and not be punished? Oh, the wickedness of man!—(Forcibly.) Oh, if mamma were only here, now!
He (threateningly). Who are these fellows? This Tom, Dick and Harry are—are they—(hesitates, and glances in pamphlet) are they “framed to make women false?”
She (aside). Why, he’s got a book! It’s my Guide to the Passions. The wretch has actually been copying his jealousy out of my own book. (Aloud, with pretended emotion.) Dear me, Jack, you never before objected to my little flirtations. (Aside, watching him.) How will he like that?
He (aside, puzzled). “Little flirtations!” I don’t like that—I don’t like it at all.
She. They have all been attentive, of course—
He (aside). “Of course!” I don’t like that, either.
She. But I did not think you would so take to heart a few innocent endearments.
He (starting). “Innocent endearments!” Do you mean to say that they offer you any “innocent endearments?”
She (quietly). Don’t be so boisterous, Jack: you will crush my book.
He (looking at pamphlet crushed in his hand, and throwing it from him, aside). Confound the book! I do not need any prompting now.—(Aloud.) Which of these men has dared to offer you any “innocent endearments?”
She (hesitatingly). Well—I don’t know—that I ought to tell you—since you take things so queerly. But Tom—
He (forcibly). Tom?
She. Mr. Thursby, I mean. He and I are very old friends, you know—I believe we are third cousins or so—and of course I don’t stand on ceremony with him.
He. And he does not stand on ceremony with you, I suppose?
She. Oh, no. In fact, we are first-rate friends. Indeed, when Dick Carey wanted to make love to me, he was quite jealous.
He. Oh, he was jealous, was he? The fellow’s impudence is amazing! When I meet him I’ll give him a piece of my mind.
She (demurely). Are you sure you can spare it!
He. Don’t irritate me too far, Jenny: I’ve a temper of my own.
She. You seem to have lost it now.
He. Do you not see that I am in a heat about this thing? How can you sit there so calmly? You keep cool like a—(hesitates) like a—
She (interrupting). Like a burning-glass, I keep cool myself while setting you on fire? Exactly so, and I suppose you would prefer me to be a looking-glass in which you could see only yourself?
He. A wife should reflect her husband’s image, and not that of a pack of fools.
She. Come, come, Jack, you are not jealous?
He. “Jealous!” Of course I am not jealous, but I am very much annoyed.
She. I am glad that you are not jealous, for I have always heard that a jealous man has a very poor opinion of himself.—(Aside.) There’s one for him.
He. I am not jealous, but I will probe this thing to the bottom; I must know the truth.
She (aside). He is jealous now; and this is real: I am sure it is.
He. Go on, tell me more: I must get at the bottom facts. There’s nothing like truth.
She (aside). There is nothing like it in what he’s learning.
He (aside). This Carey is harmless enough, and he can’t help talking. He’s a—he’s a telescope; you have only to draw him out, and anybody can see through him. I’ll get hold of him, draw him out, and then shut him up! (Crossing excitedly.)
She (aside). How much more his real jealousy moves me than his pretence of it! He seems very much affected: no man could be as jealous as he is unless he was very much in love.
He (with affected coolness). You have told me about Tom and Dick; pray, have you nothing to say about Harry?
She. Mr. Wylde? (Enthusiastically.) He is a man after my own heart!
He. So he is after it? (Savagely.) Just let me get after him!
She (coolly). Well, if you do not like his attentions, you can take him apart and tell him so.
He (vindictively). If I took him apart he’d never get put together again!
She. Mr. Wylde is very much afraid of his wife, but when she is not there he is more devoted than either of the others.
He. “More devoted!” What else shall I hear, I wonder?
She. It was he who had to kiss me.
He (startled). What?
She. I told him not to do it. I knew I should blush if he kissed me: I always do.
He (in great agitation). You always do? Has this man ever—(breaking down.) Oh, Jenny! Jenny! you do not know what you are doing. I do not blame you—it is not your fault: it is mine. I did not know how much I loved you, and I find it out now, when it is perhaps too late.
She (aside). How I have longed for a few words of love like these! and they have come at last!
He. I have been too selfish; I have thought too much of my work and too little of your happiness. I see now what a mistake I have made.
She (aside). I cannot sit still here and see him waste his love in the air like this.
He. I shall turn over a new leaf. If you will let me I shall devote myself to you, taking care of you and making you happy.
She (aside). If he had only spoken like that before!
He. I will try to win you away from these associates: I am sure that in your heart you do not care for them. (Crossing to her.) You know that I love you: can I not hope to win you back to me?
She (aside). Once before he spoke to me of his love: I can remember every tone of his voice, every word he said.
He. Jenny, is my task hopeless?
She (quietly crossing to arm-chair). The task is easy, Jack. (Smiling.) Perhaps you think too much of these associates: perhaps you think a good deal more of them than I do. In fact, I am sure that to-night you were the one who took to private theatricals first. By the way, where’s my Guide to the Passions? Have you seen it lately?
He (half comprehending). Your Guide to the Passions? A book with a yellow cover? I think I have seen it.
She. I saw it last in your hand—just after you had been quoting Othello.
He. Othello? Oh, then you know—
She (smiling). Yes, I know. I saw, I understood, and I retaliated on the spot.
He. You retaliated?
She. I paid you off in your own coin—counterfeit, like yours.
He (joyfully). Then Tom did not make love to you?
She. Oh, yes he did—in the play.
He. And Dick is not devoted?
She. Yes, he is—in the play.
He. And Harry did not try to kiss you?
She. Indeed he did—in the play.
He. Then you have been playing a part?
She. Haven’t you?
He. Haven’t I? Certainly not. At least—Well, at least I will say nothing more about Tom or Dick or Harry.
She. And I will say nothing more of Mrs. Lightfoot.
He (dropping in chair to her right). Mrs. Lightfoot is a fine woman, my dear (she looks up), but she is not my style at all. Besides, you know, it was only as a matter of business, for the sake of our future prospects, that I took her part.
She (throwing him skein of wool). And it is only for the sake of our future happiness that I have been playing mine.
He holds the wool and she winds the ball, and the curtain falls, leaving them in the same position its rising discovered them in.