MISS Y., actress, unmarried.
SCENERY
A nook in a ladies’ café; two small tables, a red plush sofa and some chairs.
MRS. X. enters in winter dress, in a hat and cloak, with a light Japanese basket over her arm.
MISS Y. sits in front of an unfinished bottle of beer and reads an illustrated, paper, which she subsequently exchanges for another.
Mrs. X. How are you, my dear Millie? You look awfully lonely, at this gay time of year, sitting here all by yourself, like a poor bachelor girl.
Miss Y.[Looks up from her paper, nods and continues her reading.]
Mrs. X. It makes me really quite sorry to look at you. All alone at a café when all the rest of us are having such a good time of it! It reminds me of how I felt when I saw a wedding party once, in a Paris restaurant, and the bride sat and read a comic paper while the bridegroom played billiards with the witnesses. If they begin like this, I said to myself, how will they go on, and how will they end? Fancy! He was playing billiards on the night of his wedding—and she was reading an illustrated paper! Oh, well, but you are not quite in the same box! [Waitress enters, puts a cup of chocolate in front of MRS. X., and exit.] I say, Millie, I’m not at all sure that you wouldn’t have done better to have kept him. If you come to think of it, I was the first to ask you to forgive him at the time. Don’t you remember? Why, you could have been married now, and have had a home! Do you remember how delighted you were at
Christmas when you stayed with your fiance’s people in the country? You were quite enthusiastic over domestic happiness and quite keen on getting away from the theater. After all, my dear Amelia, there’s nothing like home, sweet home—after the profession, of course!—and the kids. Isn’t it so? But you couldn’t understand that!
Miss Y.[Looks contemptuous.]