Roy. All right. Good-by, Bess. Don’t catch cold. There’s a smacking breeze coming.
Bess. And another going. Good-by.
(Roy and May exit C.)
(Graves comes down slowly and sits in chair R., of table. Bess watches him without speaking.)
Graves (slowly). Now what possessed Mrs. Manning to speak of my father? A subject to which I have never alluded. Can she mistrust me? Egad! she nearly took away my breath. My boasted boldness vanished like a flash. (Bess rises, takes a wisp of hay from mantel, and comes behind him.) And yet I’ve nothing to be ashamed of,——only a mystery. Mystery! why should I have a mystery here? (Bess tickles his ear with the wisp. He brushes it off quickly.) Confound it! it’s hurting me. This girl loves me, and I love her. I’ve only to speak and she is mine. (Bess tickles him. He brushes it off.) Hang it! I’m tormented with doubts. But confession is a sure road to favor. I’ll make a confidant of Bessie. If anybody else should tell her I should be (Bess tickles him again) stung with shame. Yes, I’ll meet it (Bess puts her arms round his neck and brings her face round as he speaks this) face to face.
Bess. Dreaming, Marcus? (Sits on hassock at his feet, back to audience).
Mar. Why, Bess, what a brute I’ve been! Yes, dreaming, Bess, of a happy future, I trust, in store for you and me. Do you ever dream of that time?
Bess. Not I. When the skies are bright above us, why should we seek to peep even in dreams beneath the horizon when we know not what storms may be gathering there to roll over the brightness of the present?
Mar. Yes; but the cautious mariner is ever alert for the faintest signs of the coming storm.
Bess. Well, I am not a mariner, and my umbrella is always at hand.