Ritter. What’s the show for, a charity of some kind?
Mrs. Ritter. [Turning to him suddenly, and with a shade of practicality] It’s for the Seamen’s Institute. Kind of a refuge for them, you know, while they’re in port; so the sailors won’t be wandering around the streets getting into bad company. [Ritter disposes of more ashes, with an unusual precision, and Mrs. Ritter resumes her sewing. Then, suddenly, she glances toward the casement-window at the right.] It was Mrs. Pampinelli’s idea, [She gathers her things into the sewing-basket and gets up, swinging round to her left and talking as she goes.] so of course she didn’t want anything to happen. [She sets the sewing-basket down on the piano, and, with another glance thru the window at the right, crosses to the little table at the left where Ritter is sitting.] So she called me up the first thing in the morning, and she said, “Paula darling, have you heard the news?” So, of course, I said “No;” because up to that time I hadn’t, and, naturally, I wasn’t going to say that I had.
Ritter. Certainly not.
Mrs. R. “Well,” she said, “poor Jimmy Sheppard has just passed on.” Well, luckily, I was sitting down at the time, or I positively think I should have passed on myself.
Ritter. [Raising his hand from the table as though distressed by the extremity of her remarks] Don’t say such things.
Mrs. R. [Mistaking his attitude] No, really, Fred, you’ve no idea the feeling that came over me when she said that. “Well,” I said, “Betty, what on earth are we going to do!” Because the tickets were all sold, you know. “Well,” she said, “Paula,—the only thing I see to do, is to have you step right into Clara Sheppard’s role.” “Me!” I said. “Yes,” she said; “you are the only person in my opinion who is qualified to play the part.” “But, my dear,” I said, “I’ve never stepped on a stage in my life!” “That is absolutely inconsequential,” she said, “it is entirely a matter of dramatic instinct. And,” she said, [She simpers a bit here and moves around from the right of the little table where she has been standing to the back of her husband’s chair, at the left of the table.] “you have that—to a far greater degree than you’ve any idea of.” [He makes a sound of dry amusement.] No, really, Fred, everyone was saying it was a positive tragedy that you couldn’t have been there to see me—I never forgot myself once. [She rests her hand on his left shoulder, and he reaches up and takes her hand.]
Ritter. What are you going to do now, become an actress?
Mrs. R. No, but it surprised me so, the way everybody enthused; because I didn’t think I’d done anything so extraordinary—I just walked onto the stage, and said what I’d been told to say, and walked off again. [She emphasizes this last phrase by an indefinite gesture of nonchalance in the direction of the door at her left.] And yet everybody seemed to think it was wonderful. Why, Nelly Fell said she’d never seen even a professional actress so absolutely unconscious. [He makes a sound of amusement.] Really, Fred, you ought to have heard them. Why, they said if they didn’t know, they never in the world would have believed that it was my first offense.
Ritter. You mustn’t believe everything these women tell you; they’ll tell you anything to get their names in the paper.
Mrs. R. Well, it wasn’t only they that said it;—people that I didn’t even know said it. Why, Mrs. Pampinelli had a letter from a woman away out at Glenside that happened to see the performance, and she said that, at times, my repose was positively uncanny. And the papers simply raved; especially “The Evening Breeze.” I have it upstairs, I must show it to you. It said that it didn’t understand how I had escaped the public eye so long. [She glances at the cuckoo-clock over the door at the left, and, in doing so, notices a book that has been left lying on the chair below the door: she steps over and picks it up.] I was awfully sorry you couldn’t have been there, Fred. I was going to write you about it when Mrs. Pampinelli first spoke to me about going on, but there was so little time, you see. And then, I didn’t think you’d mind;—especially on account of its being for charity. [He is very carefully putting ashes on the little tray. She stands holding the book, looking at him. And there is a slight pause.] You don’t mind my going on, do you, Fred?