Europa. Some day, I'll shout.—What do they think of me?
You heard them pass remarks.
Blyth. I heard them say
Europa's just the best thing in the show.
Europa. That's what I like to hear! Dear Blyth! Be off!
[Blyth goes out.]
The best thing in the show—Europa just,
Who caught and held Sir Tristram's eyes to-day
Until he fathomed hers. I think we said,
If looks can speak, "I'm ready when you like."
A footstep and a skirt. Sir Tristram's wife?
[Closes the door, leaving it ajar. Turns out the light in the
Business-room.]
[Enter Lady Sumner. Opening the portmanteau she searches her husband's
pockets.]
Lady S. Is this the place? No; better in the house; Best in his bed; the moment he comes home! Oh, beautifully done to drink it there And then! And with my dying breath to curse My husband for a coward that killed my soul, And feared himself to die. I'm not afraid. After I'm dead I'll come to life again, And tell him what he asked; and when I'm dead Indeed, my wraith will haunt him, whispering still The thing he asked: who had my earliest kiss Of love; who woke my heart and strung my soul To ecstasy he withered with his lust. I'll hiss it nightly in his waking ear; Torture him too with dreams. Not every night; But now and then to wear him out with doubt: I'll madden him and kill him patiently. [She finds the letter as well as the vial.] What faded letter's this? [Reads] "Do you know "that Warwick Groom and Martha Sackville were "lovers? She visited him every night in his dressing- "room at the Parthenon when he played Romeo; and "the reason why he insisted on beginning the fourth "act with the fifth scene of the third act was the reason "you guess at once: it gave them time. But that "was not the only place in the play where they "performed their private intermede. How this was "managed? Ask old Odham, Groom's dresser."
He must have known
The day he married me! My head will burst!
"She visited him every night in his dressing-room."
He knew this and he married me! My soul
It is that struggles in my wasted womb,
And cannot be brought forth but by my death,
A still-born soul and posthumous, since God
Is not! I have been nothing—worse than nothing:
A bed-mate, a convenience! Hell, hell, hell!
[Goes out.]
Europa. [At the door of the Business-room]
If I could act like that! But good, my luck!
Sweet luck and succulent! Dear luck of mine!
Plumb in the prime-joint of their mystery sticks
My fork! The venison's hung and high! I'll cut
And come again! Soul? Talk of soul! Give me
My will, my body and my clean-run brains,
Me and my purposes!
Sir T. [Without] I'll not go home
To-night.