ACT III
[A few minutes ago the Comtesse de la Briere, who has not recently been in England, was shown into the London home of the Shands. Though not sufficiently interested to express her surprise in words, she raised her eyebrows on finding herself in a charming room; she has presumed that the Shand scheme of decoration would be as impossible as themselves.
It is the little room behind the dining-room for which English architects have long been famous; ‘Make something of this, and you will indeed be a clever one,’ they seem to say to you as they unveil it. The Comtesse finds that John has undoubtedly made something of it. It is his ‘study’ (mon Dieu, the words these English use!) and there is nothing in it that offends; there is so much not in it too that might so easily have been there. It is not in the least ornate; there are no colours quarrelling with each other (unseen, unheard by the blissful occupant of the revolving chair); the Comtesse has not even the gentle satisfaction of noting a ‘suite’ in stained oak. Nature might have taken a share in the decorations, so restful are they to the eyes; it is the working room of a man of culture, probably lately down from Oxford; at a first meeting there is nothing in it that pretends to be what it is not. Our visitor is a little disappointed, but being fair-minded blows her absent host a kiss for disappointing her.
He has even, she observes with a twinkle, made something of the most difficult of his possessions, the little wife. For Maggie, who is here receiving her, has been quite creditably toned down. He has put her into a little grey frock that not only deals gently with her personal defects, but is in harmony with the room. Evidently, however, she has not ‘risen’ with him, for she is as ever; the Comtesse, who remembers having liked her the better of the two, could shake her for being so stupid. For instance, why is she not asserting herself in that other apartment?
The other apartment is really a correctly solemn dining-room, of which we have a glimpse through partly open folding-doors. At this moment it is harbouring Mr. Shand’s ladies’ committee, who sit with pens and foolscap round the large table, awaiting the advent of their leader. There are nobly wise ones and some foolish ones among them, for we are back in the strange days when it was considered ‘unwomanly’ for women to have minds. The Comtesse peeps at them with curiosity, as they arrange their papers or are ushered into the dining-room through a door which we cannot see. To her frivolous ladyship they are a species of wild fowl, and she is specially amused to find her niece among them. She demands an explanation as soon as the communicating doors close.]
COMTESSE. Tell me since when has my dear Sybil become one of these ladies? It is not like her.
[MAGGIE is obviously not clever enough to understand the woman question.
Her eye rests longingly on a half-finished stocking as she innocently
but densely replies:]
MAGGIE. I think it was about the time that my husband took up their
cause.
[The COMTESSE has been hearing tales of LADY SYBIL and the barbarian; and after having the grace to hesitate, she speaks with the directness for which she is famed in Mayfair.]
COMTESSE. Mrs. Shand, excuse me for saying that if half of what I hear be true, your husband is seeing that lady a great deal too often. [MAGGIE is expressionless; she reaches for her stocking, whereat her guest loses patience.] Oh, mon Dieu, put that down; you can buy them at two francs the pair. Mrs. Shand, why do not you compel yourself to take an intelligent interest in your husband’s work?
MAGGIE. I typewrite his speeches.
COMTESSE. But do you know what they are about?
MAGGIE. They are about various subjects.
COMTESSE. Oh!
[Did MAGGIE give her an unseen quizzical glance before demurely resuming the knitting? One is not certain, as JOHN has come in, and this obliterates her. A ‘Scotsman on the make,’ of whom DAVID has spoken reverently, is still to be read—in a somewhat better bound volume—in JOHN SHAND’s person; but it is as doggedly honest a face as ever; and he champions women, not for personal ends, but because his blessed days of poverty gave him a light upon their needs. His self-satisfaction, however, has increased, and he has pleasantly forgotten some things. For instance, he can now call out ‘Porter’ at railway stations without dropping his hands for the barrow. MAGGIE introduces the COMTESSE, and he is still undaunted.]
JOHN. I remember you well—at Glasgow.
COMTESSE. It must be quite two years ago, Mr. Shand.
[JOHN has no objection to showing that he has had a classical education.]
JOHN. Tempus fugit, Comtesse.
COMTESSE. I have not been much in this country since then, and I return to find you a coming man.
[Fortunately his learning is tempered with modesty.]
JOHN. Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know.
COMTESSE. The Ladies’ Champion.
[His modesty is tempered with a respect for truth.]
JOHN. Well, well.
COMTESSE. And you are about, as I understand, to introduce a bill to give women an equal right with men to grow beards [which is all she knows about it. He takes the remark literally.]
JOHN. There’s nothing about beards in it, Comtesse. [She gives him time to cogitate, and is pleased to note that there is no result.] Have you typed my speech, Maggie?
MAGGIE. Yes; twenty-six pages. [She produces it from a drawer.]
[Perhaps JOHN wishes to impress the visitor.]
JOHN. I’m to give the ladies’ committee a general idea of it. Just see, Maggie, if I know the peroration. ‘In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, these are the reasonable demands of every intelligent Englishwoman’—I had better say British woman—‘and I am proud to nail them to my flag’—-
[The visitor is properly impressed.]
COMTESSE. Oho! defies his leaders!
JOHN. ‘So long as I can do so without embarrassing the Government.’
COMTESSE. Ah, ah, Mr. Shand!
JOHN. ‘I call upon the Front Bench, sir, loyally but firmly’—
COMTESSE. Firm again!
JOHN. —‘either to accept my Bill, or to promise WITHOUT DELAY to bring in one of their own; and if they decline to do so I solemnly warn them that though I will not press the matter to a division just now’—
COMTESSE. Ahem!
JOHN. ‘I will bring it forward again in the near future.’ And now Comtesse, you know that I’m not going to divide—and not another soul knows it.
COMTESSE. I am indeed flattered by your confidence.
JOHN. I’ve only told you because I don’t care who knows now.
COMTESSE. Oh!
[Somehow MAGGIE seems to be dissatisfied.]
MAGGIE. But why is that, John?
JOHN. I daren’t keep the Government in doubt any longer about what I mean to do. I’ll show the whips the speech privately to-night.
MAGGIE [who still wants to know]. But not to go to a division is hedging, isn’t it? Is that strong?
JOHN. To make the speech at all, Maggie, is stronger than most would dare. They would do for me if I went to a division.
MAGGIE. Bark but not bite?
JOHN. Now, now, Maggie, you’re out of your depth.
MAGGIE. I suppose that’s it.
[The COMTESSE remains in the shallows.]
COMTESSE. But what will the ladies say, Mr. Shand?
JOHN. They won’t like it, Comtesse, but they’ve got to lump it.
[Here the maid appears with a card for MAGGIE, who considers it quietly.]
JOHN. Any one of importance?
MAGGIE. No.
JOHN. Then I’m ready, Maggie.
[This is evidently an intimation that she is to open the folding-doors, and he makes an effective entrance into the dining-room, his thumb in his waistcoat. There is a delicious clapping of hands from the committee, and the door closes. Not till then does MAGGIE, who has grown thoughtful, tell her maid to admit the visitor.]
COMTESSE. Another lady, Mrs. Shand?
MAGGIE. The card says ‘Mr. Charles Venables.’
[The COMTESSE is really interested at last.]
COMTESSE. Charles Venables! Do you know him?
MAGGIE. I think I call to mind meeting one of that name at the Foreign Office party.
COMTESSE. One of that name! He who is a Minister of your Cabinet. But as you know him so little why should he call on you?
MAGGIE. I wonder.
[MAGGIE’s glance wanders to the drawer in which she has replaced JOHN’s speech.]
COMTESSE. Well, well, I shall take care of you, petite.
MAGGIE. Do you know him?
COMTESSE. Do I know him! The last time I saw him he asked me to—to—hem!—ma cherie, it was thirty years ago.
MAGGIE. Thirty years!
COMTESSE. I was a pretty woman then. I dare say I shall detest him now; but if I find I do not—let us have a little plot—I shall drop this book; and then perhaps you will be so charming as—as not to be here for a little while?
[MR. VENABLES, who enters, is such a courtly seigneur that he seems to bring the eighteenth century with him; you feel that his sedan chair is at the door. He stoops over MAGGIE’s plebeian hand.]
VENABLES. I hope you will pardon my calling, Mrs. Shand; we had such a pleasant talk the other evening.
[MAGGIE, of course, is at once deceived by his gracious manner.]
MAGGIE. I think it’s kind of you. Do you know each other? The Comtesse de la Briere.
[He repeats the name with some emotion, and the COMTESSE, half mischievously, half sadly, holds a hand before her face.]
VENABLES. Comtesse.
COMTESSE. Thirty years, Mr. Venables.
[He gallantly removes the hand that screens her face.]
VENABLES. It does not seem so much.
[She gives him a similar scrutiny.]
COMTESSE. Mon Dieu, it seems all that.
[They smile rather ruefully. MAGGIE like a kind hostess relieves the tension.]
MAGGIE. The Comtesse has taken a cottage in Surrey for the summer.
VENABLES. I am overjoyed.
COMTESSE. No, Charles, you are not. You no longer care. Fickle one! And it is only thirty years.
[He sinks into a chair beside her.]
VENABLES. Those heavenly evenings, Comtesse, on the Bosphorus.
COMTESSE. I refuse to talk of them. I hate you.
[But she drops the book, and MAGGIE fades from the room. It is not a very clever departure, and the old diplomatist smiles. Then he sighs a beautiful sigh, for he does all things beautifully.]
VENABLES. It is moonlight, Comtesse, on the Golden Horn.
COMTESSE. Who are those two young things in a caique?
VENABLES. Is he the brave Leander, Comtesse, and is she Hero of the Lamp?
COMTESSE. No, she is the foolish wife of the French Ambassador, and he is a good-for-nothing British attache trying to get her husband’s secrets out of her.
VENABLES. Is it possible! They part at a certain garden gate.
COMTESSE. Oh, Charles, Charles!
VENABLES. But you promised to come back; I waited there till dawn. Blanche, if you HAD come back—
COMTESSE. How is Mrs. Venables?
VENABLES. She is rather poorly. I think it’s gout.
COMTESSE. And you?
VENABLES. I creak a little in the mornings.
COMTESSE. So do I. There is such a good man at Wiesbaden.
VENABLES. The Homburg fellow is better. The way he patched me up last summer—Oh, Lord, Lord!
COMTESSE. Yes, Charles, the game is up; we are two old fogies. [They groan in unison; then she raps him sharply on the knuckles.] Tell me, sir, what are you doing here?
VENABLES. Merely a friendly call.
COMTESSE. I do not believe it.
VENABLES. The same woman; the old delightful candour.
COMTESSE. The same man; the old fibs. [She sees that the door is asking a question.] Yes, come, Mrs. Shand, I have had quite enough of him; I warn you he is here for some crafty purpose.
MAGGIE [drawing back timidly]. Surely not?
VENABLES. Really, Comtesse, you make conversation difficult. To show that my intentions are innocent, Mrs. Shand, I propose that you choose the subject.
MAGGIE [relieved]. There, Comtesse.
VENABLES. I hope your husband is well?
MAGGIE. Yes, thank you. [With a happy thought] I decide that we talk about him.
VENABLES. If you wish it.
COMTESSE. Be careful; HE has chosen the subject.
MAGGIE. I chose it, didn’t I?
VENABLES. You know you did.
MAGGIE [appealingly]. You admire John?
VENABLES. Very much. But he puzzles me a little. You Scots, Mrs. Shand, are such a mixture of the practical and the emotional that you escape out of an Englishman’s hand like a trout.
MAGGIE [open-eyed]. Do we?
VENABLES. Well, not you, but your husband. I have known few men make a worse beginning in the House. He had the most atrocious bow-wow public-park manner—-
COMTESSE. I remember that manner!
MAGGIE. No, he hadn’t.
VENABLES [soothingly]. At first. But by his second session he had shed all that, and he is now a pleasure to listen to. By the way, Comtesse, have you found any dark intention in that?
COMTESSE. You wanted to know whether he talks over these matter with his wife; and she has told you that he does not.
MAGGIE [indignantly]. I haven’t said a word about it, have I?
VENABLES. Not a word. Then, again, I admire him for his impromptu speeches.
MAGGIE. What is impromptu?
VENABLES. Unprepared. They have contained some grave blunders not so much of judgment as of taste—-
MAGGIE [hotly]. I don’t think so.
VENABLES. Pardon me. But he has righted himself subsequently in the neatest way. I have always found that the man whose second thoughts are good is worth watching. Well, Comtesse, I see you have something to say.
COMTESSE. You are wondering whether she can tell you who gives him his second thoughts.
MAGGIE. Gives them to John? I would like to see anybody try to give thoughts to John.
VENABLES. Quite so.
COMTESSE. Is there anything more that has roused your admiration Charles?
VENABLES [purring]. Let me see. Yes, we are all much edified by his humour.
COMTESSE [surprised indeed]. His humour? That man!
MAGGIE [with hauteur]. Why not?
VENABLES. I assure you, Comtesse, some of the neat things in his speeches convulse the house. A word has even been coined for them—Shandisms.
COMTESSE [slowly recovering from a blow]. Humour!
VENABLES. In conversation, I admit, he strikes one as being—ah—somewhat lacking in humour.
COMTESSE [pouncing]. You are wondering who supplies his speeches with the humour.
MAGGIE. Supplies John?
VENABLES. Now that you mention it, some of his Shandisms do have a curiously feminine quality.
COMTESSE. You have thought it might be a woman.
VENABLES. Really, Comtesse—
COMTESSE. I see it all. Charles, you thought it might be the wife!
VENABLES [flinging up his hands]. I own up.
MAGGIE [bewildered]. Me?
VENABLES. Forgive me, I see I was wrong.
MAGGIE [alarmed]. Have I been doing John any harm?
VENABLES. On the contrary, I am relieved to know that there are no hairpins in his speeches. If he is at home, Mrs. Shand, may I see him? I am going to be rather charming to him.
MAGGIE [drawn in two directions]. Yes, he is—oh yes—but—
VENABLES. That is to say, Comtesse, if he proves himself the man I believe him to be.
[This arrests MAGGIE almost as she has reached the dining-room door.]
MAGGIE [hesitating]. He is very busy just now.
VENABLES [smiling]. I think he will see me.
MAGGIE. Is it something about his speech?
VENABLES [the smile hardening]. Well, yes, it is.
MAGGIE. Then I dare say I could tell you what you want to know without troubling him, as I’ve been typing it.
VENABLES [with a sigh]. I don’t acquire information in that way.
COMTESSE. I trust not.
MAGGIE. There’s no secret about it. He is to show it to the whips tonight.
VENABLES [sharply]. You are sure of that?
COMTESSE. It is quite true, Charles. I heard him say so; and indeed he repeated what he called the ‘peroration’ before me.
MAGGIE. I know it by heart. [She plays a bold game.] ‘These are the demands of all intelligent British women, and I am proud to nail them to my flag’—
COMTESSE. The very words, Mrs. Shand.
MAGGIE [looking at her imploringly]. ‘And I don’t care how they may embarrass the Government.’ [The COMTESSE is bereft of speech, so suddenly has she been introduced to the real MAGGIE SHAND]. ‘If the right honourable gentleman will give us his pledge to introduce a similar Bill this session I will willingly withdraw mine; but otherwise I solemnly warn him that I will press the matter now to a division.’
[She turns her face from the great man; she has gone white.]
VENABLES [after a pause]. Capital.
[The blood returns to MAGGIE’s heart.]
COMTESSE [who is beginning to enjoy herself very much]. Then you are pleased to know that he means to, as you say, go to a division?
VENABLES. Delighted. The courage of it will be the making of him.
COMTESSE. I see.
VENABLES. Had he been to hedge we should have known that he was a pasteboard knight and have disregarded him.
COMTESSE. I see.
[She desires to catch the eye of MAGGIE, but it is carefully turned from her.]
VENABLES. Mrs. Shand, let us have him in at once.
COMTESSE. Yes, yes, indeed.
[MAGGIE’s anxiety returns, but she has to call JOHN in.]
JOHN [impressed]. Mr. Venables! This is an honour.
VENABLES. How are you, Shand?
JOHN. Sit down, sit down. [Becoming himself again.] I can guess what you have come about.
VENABLES. Ah, you Scotsmen.
JOHN. Of course I know I’m harassing the Government a good deal—
VENABLES [blandly]. Not at all, Shand. The Government are very pleased.
JOHN. You don’t expect me to believe that?
VENABLES. I called here to give you the proof of it. You may know that we are to have a big meeting at Leeds on the 24th, when two Ministers are to speak. There is room for a third speaker, and I am authorised to offer that place to you.
JOHN. To me!
VENABLES. Yes.
JOHN [swelling]. It would be—the Government taking me up.
VENABLES. Don’t make too much of it; it would be an acknowledgment that they look upon you as one of their likely young men.
MAGGIE. John!
JOHN [not found wanting in a trying hour]. It’s a bribe. You are offering me this on condition that I don’t make my speech. How can you think so meanly of me as to believe that I would play the women’s cause false for the sake of my own advancement. I refuse your bribe.
VENABLES [liking him for the first time]. Good. But you are wrong. There are no conditions, and we want you to make your speech. Now do you accept?
JOHN [still suspicious]. If you make me the same offer after you have read it. I insist on your reading it first.
VENABLES [sighing]. By all means.
[MAGGIE is in an agony as she sees JOHN hand the speech to his leader. On the other hand, the COMTESSE thrills.]
But I assure you we look on the speech as a small matter. The important thing is your intention of going to a division; and we agree to that also.
JOHN [losing his head]. What’s that?
VENABLES. Yes, we agree.
JOHN. But—but—why, you have been threatening to excommunicate me if I dared.
VENABLES. All done to test you, Shand.
JOHN. To test me?
VENABLES. We know that a division on your Bill can have no serious significance; we shall see to that. And so the test was to be whether you had the pluck to divide the House. Had you been intending to talk big in this speech, and then hedge, through fear of the Government, they would have had no further use for you.
JOHN [heavily]. I understand. [But there is one thing he cannot understand, which is, why VENABLES should be so sure that he is not to hedge.]
VENABLES [turning over the pages carelessly]. Any of your good things in this, Shand?
JOHN [whose one desire is to get the pages back]. No, I—no—it isn’t necessary you should read it now.
VENABLES [from politeness only]. Merely for my own pleasure. I shall look through it this evening. [He rolls up the speech to put it in his pocket. JOHN turns despairingly to MAGGIE, though well aware that no help can come from her.]
MAGGIE. That’s the only copy there is, John. [To VENABLES] Let me make a fresh one, and send it to you in an hour or two.
VENABLES [good-naturedly]. I could not put you to that trouble, Mrs. Shand. I will take good care of it.
MAGGIE. If anything were to happen to you on the way home, wouldn’t whatever is in your pocket be considered to be the property of your heirs?
VENABLES [laughing]. Now there is forethought! Shand, I think that after that—! [He returns the speech to JOHN, whose hand swallows it greedily.] She is Scotch too, Comtesse.
COMTESSE [delighted]. Yes, she is Scotch too.
VENABLES. Though the only persons likely to do for me in the street, Shand, are your ladies’ committee. Ever since they took the horse out of my brougham, I can scent them a mile away.
COMTESSE. A mile? Charles, peep in there.
[He softly turns the handle of the dining-room door, and realises that his scent is not so good as he had thought it. He bids his hostess and the COMTESSE good-bye in a burlesque whisper and tiptoes off to safer places. JOHN having gone out with him, MAGGIE can no longer avoid the COMTESSE’s reproachful eye. That much injured lady advances upon her with accusing finger.]
COMTESSE. So, madam!
[MAGGIE is prepared for her.]
MAGGIE. I don’t know what you mean.
COMTESSE. Yes, you do. I mean that there IS some one who ‘helps’ our Mr. Shand.
MAGGIE. There’s not.
COMTESSE. And it IS a woman, and it’s you.
MAGGIE. I help in the little things.
COMTESSE. The little things! You are the Pin he picked up and that is to make his fortune. And now what I want to know is whether your John is aware that you help at all.
[JOHN returns, and at once provides the answer.]
JOHN. Maggie, Comtesse, I’ve done it again!
MAGGIE. I’m so glad, John.
[The COMTESSE is in an ecstasy.]
COMTESSE. And all because you were not to hedge, Mr. Shand.
[His appeal to her with the wistfulness of a schoolboy makes him rather attractive.]
JOHN. You won’t tell on me, Comtesse! [He thinks it out.] They had just guessed I would be firm because they know I’m a strong man. You little saw, Maggie, what a good turn you were doing me when you said you wanted to make another copy of the speech.
[She is dense.]
MAGGIE. How, John?
JOHN. Because now I can alter the end.
[She is enlightened.]
MAGGIE. So you can!
JOHN. Here’s another lucky thing, Maggie: I hadn’t told the ladies’ committee that I was to hedge, and so they need never know. Comtesse, I tell you there’s a little cherub who sits up aloft and looks after the career of John Shand.
[The COMTESSE looks not aloft but toward the chair at present occupied by MAGGIE.]
COMTESSE. Where does she sit, Mr. Shand?
[He knows that women are not well read.]
JOHN. It’s just a figure of speech.
[He returns airily to his committee room; and now again you may hear the click of MAGGIE’s needles. They no longer annoy the COMTESSE; she is setting them to music.]
COMTESSE. It is not down here she sits, Mrs. Shand, knitting a stocking.
MAGGIE. No, it isn’t.
COMTESSE. And when I came in I gave him credit for everything; even for the prettiness of the room!
MAGGIE. He has beautiful taste.
COMTESSE. Good-bye, Scotchy.
MAGGIE. Good-bye, Comtesse, and thank you for coming.
COMTESSE. Good-bye—Miss Pin.
[MAGGIE rings genteelly.]
MAGGIE. Good-bye.
[The COMTESSE is now lost in admiration of her.]
COMTESSE. You divine little wife. He can’t be worthy of it, no man could be worthy of it. Why do you do it?
[MAGGIE shivers a little.]
MAGGIE. He loves to think he does it all himself; that’s the way of men. I’m six years older than he is. I’m plain, and I have no charm. I shouldn’t have let him marry me. I’m trying to make up for it.
[The COMTESSE kisses her and goes away. MAGGIE, somewhat foolishly, resumes her knitting.]
[Some days later this same room is listening—with the same inattention—to the outpouring of JOHN SHAND’s love for the lady of the hiccoughs. We arrive—by arrangement—rather late; and thus we miss some of the most delightful of the pangs.
One can see that these two are playing no game, or, if they are, that they little know it. The wonders of the world [so strange are the instruments chosen by Love] have been revealed to JOHN in hiccoughs; he shakes in SYBIL’s presence; never were more swimming eyes; he who has been of a wooden face till now, with ways to match, has gone on flame like a piece of paper; emotion is in flood in him. We may be almost fond of JOHN for being so worshipful of love. Much has come to him that we had almost despaired of his acquiring, including nearly all the divine attributes except that sense of humour. The beautiful SYBIL has always possessed but little of it also, and what she had has been struck from her by Cupid’s flail. Naked of the saving grace, they face each other in awful rapture.]
JOHN. In a room, Sybil, I go to you as a cold man to a fire. You fill me like a peal of bells in an empty house.
[She is being brutally treated by the dear impediment, for which hiccough is such an inadequate name that even to spell it is an abomination though a sign of ability. How to describe a sound that is noiseless? Let us put it thus, that when SYBIL wants to say something very much there are little obstacles in her way; she falters, falls perhaps once, and then is over, the while her appealing orbs beg you not to be angry with her. We may express those sweet pauses in precious dots, which some clever person can afterwards string together and make a pearl necklace of them.]
SYBIL. I should not ... let you say it, ... but ... you ... say it so beautifully.
JOHN. You must have guessed.
SYBIL. I dreamed ... I feared ... but you were ... Scotch, and I didn’t know what to think.
JOHN. Do you know what first attracted me to you, Sybil? It was your insolence. I thought, ‘I’ll break her insolence for her.’
SYBIL. And I thought... ‘I’ll break his str...ength!’
JOHN. And now your cooing voice plays round me; the softness of you, Sybil, in your pretty clothes makes me think of young birds. [The impediment is now insurmountable; she has to swim for it, she swims toward him.] It is you who inspire my work.
[He thrills to find that she can be touched without breaking.]
SYBIL. I am so glad... so proud...
JOHN. And others know it, Sybil, as well as I. Only yesterday the Comtesse said to me, ‘No man could get on so fast unaided. Cherchez la femme, Mr. Shand.’
SYBIL. Auntie said that?
JOHN. I said ‘Find her yourself, Comtesse.’
SYBIL. And she?
JOHN. She said ‘I have found her,’ and I said in my blunt way, ‘You mean Lady Sybil,’ and she went away laughing.
SYBIL. Laughing?
JOHN. I seem to amuse the woman.
[Sybil grows sad.]
SYBIL. If Mrs. Shand—It is so cruel to her. Whom did you say she had gone to the station to meet?
JOHN. Her father and brothers.
SYBIL. It is so cruel to them. We must think no more of this. It is mad... ness.
JOHN. It’s fate. Sybil, let us declare our love openly.
SYBIL. You can’t ask that, now in the first moment that you tell me of it.
JOHN. The one thing I won’t do even for you is to live a life of underhand.
SYBIL. The... blow to her.
JOHN. Yes. But at least she has always known that I never loved her.
SYBIL. It is asking me to give... up everything, every one, for you.
JOHN. It’s too much.
[JOHN is humble at last.]
SYBIL. To a woman who truly loves, even that is not too much. Oh! it is not I who matter—it is you.
JOHN. My dear, my dear.
SYBIL. So gladly would I do it to save you; but, oh, if it were to bring you down!
JOHN. Nothing can keep me down if I have you to help me.
SYBIL. I am dazed, John, I...
JOHN. My love, my love.
SYBIL. I... oh... here...
JOHN. Be brave, Sybil, be brave.