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ON THE ROOF

Mrs. West (as she covers her ears): Ugh, how I hate those guns!

Mrs. Holt (shuddering): This awful afternoon!

Mrs. West (shepherding her treasures closer about her): I do wish that shooting would stop. Why doesn’t somebody come? Why should women have to go through things like this?

Mrs. Holt (gazing toward the river): Why doesn’t he come? He said he’d be back by noon. (Cowering before renewing shots) O God, this is awful!

Miss Sibley (who has been calmly tying the bandage ends with her teeth and her free hand, as she sinks weakly back on her blanket): Does there happen to be any water left?

Mrs. West (peering into a bronze urn): Not a drop.

Miss Sibley (stoically): It’s all right. I can wait.

Mrs. Holt (sharply): Wait for what?

Miss Sibley (resignedly): Until Dr. Holt gets back.

Mrs. Holt (as rifleshots die away): I fancy we’ll all wait until Dr. Holt gets back.

Mrs. West: But why doesn’t he come?

Mrs. Holt (staring toward city wall): I know nothing could happen to him. He’s always been safe. These natives all know him. They respect him. They’ve seen him give the best ten years of his life to uplift them. They’d always remember that.

Miss Sibley: They don’t remember much, in times like these.

Mrs. Holt: But crazy as they’ve gone, they couldn’t forget what he’s done for them.

Mrs. West (leaning timidly over roof edge): It seems quieter down there, thank God. Yes indeed, Mrs. Holt, you should be proud of your husband. He’s been simply wonderful, wonderful through everything. I’ll never, never forget how he risked his life to save my children, how he went out with only that little bowl of tea in his hands and harangued those yellow bandits and held them back.

Mrs. Holt (the proud wife): China needs him.

Mrs. West (the uncomfortable woman): We all need him. And I hope to heaven he gets us out of this before that shooting starts up again.

Mrs. Holt: I never knew James to fail.

Mrs. West (cowering at a renewed shot or two): How I wish I’d listened to William and gone out with that last boatload yesterday. But I hated to ooze away and leave everything I owned. (Her haggard eye assesses her bundles.) It was bad enough having three of my tomb jades stolen, and my best celadon bowl broken, and that amah carrying off a Ming vase that William paid two hundred dollars in gold for. Heaven knows I’ve lost enough. And suffered enough. Women do need men at a time like this. (She mops her face with a soiled and inadequate handkerchief.) And water.

Mrs. Holt (trying to moisten her dry lips): I told both my boys to bring water back with them when they came. I sent Ko Lee down, and he never came back. I sent Chunn down, and he never came back. They both seemed good boys.

Mrs. West: You never know, in times like these. The bottom simply falls out of everything. (She stoops over the parrot cage, finds a little tepid water in the birdbath, and surreptitiously drinks it.) I try to tell myself it’s just a nightmare, that I’ll wake up and find it’s only a bad dream. (A scream, horrible and high-pitched, sounds from the street below.)

Miss Sibley (covering her face as she shrinks back from roof edge): It’s real enough.

Mrs. West (pantingly producing a small American flag): Thank God I’ve got this, if the worst comes to the worst.

Miss Sibley: What good will that do you?

Mrs. West: It’ll protect me.

Miss Sibley (lifting her wounded arm to a more comfortable position): It didn’t do much protecting in my case.

Mrs. West (wincing as the shooting starts up again): That’s the maddening part of it all. Over there on that river, not more than two miles away, is an American warship, a warship with our marines on it, with three or four hundred men who are supposed to protect us. And us here, having to go through this!

Mrs. Holt (with quiet resolution): Mark my words, James will have help here within an hour. I’ve never known him to fail. He’ll come back, and bring those bluejackets with him. And then those yellow robbers will learn they can’t loot and kill like this without paying for it.

Mrs. West (peering over parapet): It seems to be getting worse.

Miss Sibley: No, it’s better when they’re just shooting. It’s—it’s those awful quiet moments that I hate.

Mrs. Holt: We can at least be brave. Dr. Holt would expect that of us.

Miss Sibley: But if Dr. Holt can’t get through the lines?

Mrs. Holt (reprovingly): God will not forsake us.

Mrs. West (leaning over trap door): Listen. They’re in the house again. They’re downstairs. I can hear them. (She sits up, aghast.) Supposing, supposing they find out there are three white women up here?

Mrs. Holt: Ssssh! Be quiet! God will not forsake us.

Miss Sibley (in half-languid monotone): I’ve been wondering if either of you thought to keep a revolver or anything?

Mrs. Holt (not understanding her): What could three women like us do against a yellow horde like that?

Miss Sibley: I don’t mean that. I mean if—if they find out we’re up here. (They sit silent a moment, looking at one another.)

Mrs. Holt (pulling herself together): That can’t and won’t happen. It couldn’t. Dr. Holt most distinctly said he’d be outside the wall by ten o’clock and back with the men from the gunboat by noon.

Mrs. West: But it’s tiffin-time; it’s well past tiffin-time now.

Mrs. Holt: I have the utmost faith in my husband.

Miss Sibley: He’d never fail us, if he’s alive. That was the last thing he said to me, that I was to depend on him.

Mrs. Holt (jealously): We’re all depending on him.

Miss Sibley (rising on one elbow and staring forlornly out): Oh, I do hope nothing’s happened to Dr. Holt.

Mrs. Holt (her nerves snapping): Dr. Holt seems to be involved in a great many of your hopes.

Miss Sibley (as their glances lock): He is.

Mrs. Holt: It’s a nice time for you to acknowledge it.

Miss Sibley: Well, I can’t see that it makes much difference, now, either to you or to me.

Mrs. Holt: Oh, you think a thing like that doesn’t matter?

Miss Sibley: What does anything matter, now?

Mrs. Holt (mockingly): It was loyal of you to stick to him, like this, to the end.

Miss Sibley: He asked me to stay.

Mrs. Holt: And you were quite willing, even to face this?

Miss Sibley (with stark intensity): I’d die for him, gladly.

Mrs. Holt: Ah, then it wasn’t only your work you loved?

Miss Sibley: Well, I did my work, when I had to. (She gets up slowly, but resolutely.) And now I can go back to it.

Mrs. Holt: What are you going to do?

Miss Sibley: I’m going down to my patients again. I’m going back to those helpless men, no matter what happens.

Mrs. West: But, my dear, you mustn’t do that. You can’t. It’s madness. You know women mustn’t be seen, at a time like this.

Miss Sibley: I’m not afraid.

Mrs. West: But that’s so selfish, risking all of us for your own feelings. It’s decidedly unfair. (She listens over trap door.) And Heaven only knows what they’re up to, even now. I can hear them down there. I can hear them distinctly. Why—why, I smell smoke. Surely they wouldn’t— (The thought is too much for her.)

Mrs. Holt (fighting against despair): No; no; they’d never do that. They always used to respect Dr. Holt’s property. They’d never dare burn this building. It’s practically a hospital now. (She shudders at the renewing rifleshots from below.) But they’re all mad. The whole country’s gone mad.

(A bullet brings down the slender pole that holds the improvised Red Cross flag.)

I—I think we ought to pray. We must pray to God for help.

(The two distraught women kneel in silent prayer. The Nurse, ignoring them, stares desolately out over the city. Through the open trap door slowly appears Shanghai Sadie, groping her way up as she watches intently below. She is a hardened but still young and appealing product of the Street of Revellers, with a veneer of demureness imposed on her old-time audacity of speech and action. She wheels about with a catlike quickness as she mounts the roof, a knife in her hands, and stares down the trap.)

Sadie: You yellow-skinned son of a she-dog, you’ve pawed your last white woman. (She meditatively wipes the knifeblade on her skirt hem and tucks it down in her stocking top. Then, for the first time, she sees the other three women on the roof.)

But look who’s here! Can you beat it? (Mordantly.) And it’s sure the proper time for silent prayer.

Miss Sibley: Just what’s happening down there?

Sadie (bitterly): Why don’t you go down and see? And get what they tried to give me.

Miss Sibley: But what’s happening?

Sadie: What’s happenin’? All Hell’s let loose. They’re lootin’ and killin’ and cuttin’ throats on every street corner. Gawd, gimme a cigarette, somebody.

Mrs. Holt (indignantly): Why did you come here?

Sadie: ’Cause I want to live, lady, as much as you do.

Mrs. Holt: But what right had you to come up here?

Sadie: Say, missus, you’re thirty miles the wrong side of the firin’ line for high-hattin’ me or anybody else. Are you still singin’ that same old song about what women should and shouldn’t do, when Sun’s men’ll be cuttin’ you up for souvenirs in ten minutes’ time?

Mrs. Holt: I resent the way you talk, at a time like this.

Sadie (with increasing anger): And I resent the way you act, any old time. You tried to keep me out of Hankow, two years ago. And last summer you tried to stop Doc Holt takin’ care of me when I was sick in Changsha—was sick doin’ work you should have been doin’. And three days ago you kept me off the Company’s boat. And now you want to keep me off your blinkin’ house top when that gutter down there’s runnin’ blood. Oh, sweet and gentle Christian, you’ve just been drippin’ the milk o’ human kindness all around me, haven’t you?

Mrs. Holt: Dr. Holt tried to make you a better woman. He forgot what you’d been and tried to save you. And he failed, exactly as I said he’d fail. He failed, in spite of everything he’d done for you.

Sadie: How about what I’d done for him?

Mrs. Holt: You?

Sadie: Yes, me. Didn’t I work in his cholera camp for three solid months? And didn’t I stay up-river with him when the flood shut us off? And didn’t I keep him from goin’ coo-coo when all you psalm-singin’ females were good and safe in Shanghai? Prunes and prisms! No wonder he only felt half-alive with you lily-fingered cake-eaters. No wonder he got human for once in his life and asked me—me—to stay on with him here in Nanking after the last o’ you human water lilies had beaten it on the boats.

Mrs. Holt (white with indignation): You’re speaking of my husband.

Sadie: And speakin’ in plain English, lady. For this isn’t the time to be toyin’ with the teacups. You’re perched here on the lid o’ Hell and you may as well face what you’re up against. You spilt a lot o’ talk about me bein’ a street woman, two years ago. And perhaps I had been. You kept sayin’ I hadn’t started straight and that I couldn’t end up straight. Well, perhaps I can’t. But for two years I’ve been as clean-livin’ as you have. And I’ll hand you another cold fact. You won’t be such a much, yourself, when these yellow devils get through with you.

Mrs. Holt: Get through with me?

Sadie: That’s what I said. For they’re down there now, rapin’ everything they can get their hands on.

Mrs. West (tremulously reaching for her little American flag): They’ll know a good woman when they see one.

Sadie: Like Hell they will! There’s a well over there they’re fillin’ up with good women’s heads. Women are cheap, today. They’re strippin’ ’em all, white and yellow. They’re tearin’ the night-gowns off the sick. And slittin’ up old grandmothers. And you, Duchess, you’d better get that joolry off you before they nose their way up here. I just saw ’em cut a woman’s hand off because her rings wouldn’t come away quick enough.

Mrs. West (tremblingly drawing off her rings): The miserable little yellow monkeys.

Sadie: They may be yellow monkeys, but when they get a musket in their hands they can put holes in people. They haven’t been paid for six months so they’re helpin’ themselves to what they can get. And we’re part of the pay. For what’s a woman to those yellow-bellied sons of—

Mrs. Holt: Silence! This may be our last hour, as you say, but I’ll not have it tainted with brothel-talk.

Sadie: All right, sister. Die genteel if you’re set on going out that way. (To Miss Sibley as the Nurse staggers determinedly toward the trap door) And just where are you countin’ on goin’?

Miss Sibley: I’m going back to my patients.

Sadie: What patients?

Miss Sibley: There’s still eleven wounded men down there, eleven helpless human beings. And I’m going back to them, no matter what happens. It’s what Dr. Holt would expect of me.

Sadie (sagaciously studying the other): So the Doc’s got you that way too? He’s a wonder, that man. But let me put you right on your count. You said there’s eleven men down there. You mean there were eleven men down there.

Miss Sibley: You don’t mean they’d dare—

Sadie: Say, lady, those eleven men don’t need your help. Every mother’s son o’ them has had his throat cut and his bed linen carried away half an hour ago. Hell, this isn’t Chinese comic opera. This is war, Chinese war.

Mrs. West (covering her face): It’s—it’s awful.

Sadie: You said it, kid. And it’ll be a damned sight worse as soon as that war-lord knows there’s white women up here. (She squats dejectedly down.) Gimme a cigarette, somebody.

Mrs. Holt (shrinking from her): We don’t smoke.

Sadie (with a hoot): You will, before tiffin-time. You’ll go up in smoke.

Mrs. West: Oh, it’s just a nightmare, and we’ll wake up and find it’s all a dream.

Sadie: You’ll wake up and find yourself a smoked kipper. Listen. What’s that? (She crawls closer to the trap door.) O Gawd, O Gawd, they’re comin’. (Suddenly stern, over her shoulder) Don’t stir, any of you. Don’t move. (She steadies herself, stoops lower, and speaks down the trap.) No sabbee. Speak English. No, no; me alone. White women all gone, long ago. No come up. No good come up before I come down. Me come along you. Keep down, I say, or you’ll get a knife through your guts. (She dodges a bayonet thrust sharply up past her face, clutches at the rifle barrel below it, and wrenches the firearm free.)

Keep down, Chinaman, or you’ll swallow cold steel. Sure, Chink, sure you can have your gun. Only keep below. What? Yes, plenty stuff. I give you plenty stuff, but you keep your distance.

(She reaches for Mrs. West’s bags, always watching the trap.)

Here good stuff if you keep down.

(Yellow hands reach up and into them she slowly and deliberately feeds silverware and jade and jewelry.)

Mrs. West (in a whispered groan): My precious things!

Sadie: Shut up. This is buying your right to breathe. Gimme those rings and things, quick, or you’ll be givin’ up more than jools. (Speaking down trap) Where’s your Big Boss, little man? Where go Big Chang? I say, where’s Chang Sun Chuan? (She listens, absently handing down more stuff, impatiently motioning for still more to be given her.) Don’t you see, he’ll hang around as long as he’s rakin’ in loot. And that leaves us a little longer to enjoy the evenin’ air. (She takes a roll of bills from her stocking and ruefully surrenders it.) But it won’t be long now. For this Chink says the Big Boss is establishin’ Headquarters downstairs right under this roof. And once that bird finds out—

Miss Sibley: The Boss? You mean Dr. Holt is back?

Sadie: Dr. Holt nothin’. I said the Big Boss. And there’s only one Big Boss in this town today. And that’s Chang Sun Chuan, the conquerin’ general. He’s It tonight. He’s taken this town and this district and he’s sittin’ pretty. Gimme some more o’ that stuff. (Again speaking down trap) Who’s your friend, little man? Tell him to keep down. Sure, me give him stuff too. (She unearths a soiled chamois boodle-bag from her bosom, grimaces, and drops gold coins into the up-reaching hands as she talks.) But keep down, both o’ you. Stay right there, Yellow-Skins, and take in the loot. What’s that you say? Say it slow. (She listens, intent.) Like Hell he will. You go back and tell the big stiff—

Mrs. Holt (breaking into sobs): Will James never come? Will he never get here?

Sadie: Stow that. I’m tryin’ to tell ’em I’m alone. I’m learnin’ things, and then you slop over and spoil it all. Say it slower, Major, and I’ll drop this seven-carat diamond in your mit. (She rises, after listening, slowly and dejectedly.) So that’s the way the land lies. (To Mrs. Holt) You’re right, lady. Your husband’s down there, after all.

Mrs. Holt: Thank God. That means the Marines are here.

Sadie: Marines my eye! Chang Sun Chuan’s got Doc Holt a prisoner o’ war down there. And that slant-eyed bandit’s just sent up an ultimatum. And it’s some love note. The Big General says he’s sleepin’ in a real bed tonight, and he’s lonesome. He says he’s goin’ to have a white woman for company.

Mrs. Holt (shaking): I—I don’t understand. And my James a prisoner.

Sadie: It’s simple enough. The North is in and the South is out. And the winners are runnin’ true to form. The Big Boss down there says Doc Holt is his prisoner. He says he was sniped at from this house and the Doc had weapons.

Mrs. Holt: That’s a lie. We hadn’t even—

Sadie: Of course it is. It’s old stuff, but it still seems to work. And we’re wastin’ time here, for that Chink general wants his answer.

Mrs. West: What answer?

Sadie (sardonically): One of us, on a platter.

Mrs. Holt (shuddering): It’s—it’s not human. (More hopefully, catching at any straw) But why should we believe that man’s story? I don’t believe James is down there. He wouldn’t be there and not send up some message. He couldn’t.

Sadie (after bending over trap): Chang told ’em that if we wanted evidence he’d cut off the white doctor’s ears and send ’em up for inspection. (Speaking down trap again) What’s that? Say it in white man’s talk. (To the women on the roof) This yellow carrier-pigeon also reports that if we talk too long the General will burn us out. He’ll fire the house, he says, even though he has to set up Headquarters somewhere else.

Mrs. West (refusing to face the inevitable): But I still don’t seem to understand. It—it doesn’t seem human.

Sadie: It ain’t. But it’s goin’ to happen. And it’s simple enough.

Mrs. West: Simple? It’s—it’s too horrible for words.

Sadie (with coerced patience): It’s simple enough. Chang knows there’s three or four white women up on this roof. And one of us has got to go down to his room, or Doc Holt’s head comes up here in a basket.

Miss Sibley (who has been staring out over the city wall): Wait. Make him wait in some way. Look, those are our gunboats moving closer up the river. They’re signaling to somebody on Socony Hill. There’s two, three, there’s four loads of marines coming off in the small boats. Oh, we’ve got to make him wait in some way.

Sadie (sardonically): How?

Miss Sibley: Oh, any way; any earthly way that’s possible. For they’re coming. I can see them coming. In half an hour we’ll have help. They’ll be here.

Sadie: But we won’t be here. (Speaking down trap) Wait a minute, Capt’n, we’re talkin’ this out. For the love o’ Mike, give us half a minute. (To the others) You know, folks, we gotta do something and do it quick. We can’t stall along another half minute. We gotta face it. We gotta decide, and decide right now, which one of us is goin’ down to General Chang Sun Chuan’s room.

(The women, in the prolonging silence, remain motionless, staring at one another. The nurse moves first.)

Miss Sibley: If I’d only kept that revolver. It would have been so much easier.

Mrs. West (hysterically): Why are you looking at me like that? You don’t think that I should—

Sadie: Stow the bunk.

Mrs. West: But I’m the mother of three children. You couldn’t ask a mother. You couldn’t expect—Oh, this is awful.

Miss Sibley (standing erect, her head up, though compelled to support her bandaged arm): It’s all right. Dr. Holt taught me the meaning of service. And I think he’ll understand. I’ll go.

Sadie (in almost a hoot of derision): You? What good would you do that Chink? D’you suppose that overlord’s goin’ to be satisfied with a sick woman? Why, sister, you couldn’t go if you wanted to. What good’s a woman with one arm in a sling?

Mrs. Holt (rising slowly and standing rigid): It would be for James. And James must live. He must. (She stops, recoils.) No, no. I’d rather die. I’d rather die clean. He’d rather see me die that way. He’d always look at me as though—Oh, it’s not right. It’s not human. Even God has deserted us.

Sadie (speaking down the trap): You’ll get your answer. It’s comin’, Capt’n, if you’ll only keep your shirt on. No, stay down; it’s comin’, I say. (She faces the other women.) I guess the time for talkin’ is about gone. It ain’t only you women. It’s Doc Holt as well. This country needs a man like him. He even fought to straighten me out—and I guess that’s harder than straightenin’ out all China. He said I wasn’t a bad woman, that I’d only started wrong. But he put me straight, two years ago, and since then I’ve kept that way. He believed in me, even though you never did. But, honest, friends, that ain’t makin’ it any easier for me. I kind o’ wanted to live. I kind o’ thought that with the Doc’s help I could wipe out all that old stuff and get somewhere. But before me wings is sprouted I’ve gotta flop. I’m what they’d call the fall-guy, back in Frisco. And I may as well—(She breaks off, to speak down the trap.) What’s that? Take your time, little soldier-man. We’re in conference. All right, have it your own way. You’re the Capt’n. (To the others) Listen. My Gawd, he’s countin’. E-Er-San-Si. That’s countin’. He’s countin’ in Chinese. And when he gets to ten it means he’s goin’ to shoot the works. It means our finish. And the Doc’s. Wait. It don’t seem right. But somebody’s gotta go. (Reaching for the knife in her stocking) And it may as well be me.

Mrs. Holt (covering her face): Oh, this is terrible.

Sadie (as she smilingly conceals the knife in her sleeve): All war is, lady. And we’re knee-deep in its worst. But you folks’ll have a chance. Get that flag up and watch for the boys from the boat.

Mrs. Holt: But they’ll be here inside of half an hour.

Sadie: And a lot’s goin’ to happen to little Sadie before that half-hour is over. Yes, they’ll come swingin’ up that street down there, those clean young boys with their white caps slanted down over one eye, but they won’t see me on the cheerin’ lines.

Miss Sibley (trying to hold her back): You can’t go.

Sadie (with wan simplicity): I gotta.

Miss Sibley: To a yellow beast like that.

Sadie (speaking down the trap): I’m comin’, Capt’n, I’m coming. (She starts down the trap door, stops, and looks at Miss Sibley.) Oh, his color won’t count much. But I gotta keep him amused until those bluejackets blow in. (She opens her make-up box and daubs rouge on her cheeks.) And I gotta look my best, for this date. But when he gets me, he’ll get eight inches o’ cold steel for a chaser. (She studies the women huddled about her.) Just tell the Doc I did the best I could. It wasn’t much, but I guess he’ll understand. (She fights off the yellow hands reaching up to clutch her.) Keep your distance, little soldier-men. I want careful handlin’ if I’m the special property o’ General Chang Sun. Handle me right, boys, or you’ll sure lose your head. For I belong to the Big Boss.

(She waves good-by, valorously, as she disappears down the open trap door. The other women crouch, strained and speechless, with bowed heads. A flurry of rifleshots sound, coming nearer, followed by the clear notes of a bugle.)

Miss Sibley (with her hands clenched): Oh, it’s too late; it’s too late!

Mrs. West (who has roused and crossed to the roof edge): Look. That’s our flag over there. Those are the Marines, coming down Socony Hill.

Mrs. Holt: Thank God! Thank God, that means law and order here again.

Mrs. West: They’re swinging into our street end, now. Those looters see them—they’re running like rabbits. Our men will be here in a minute or two.

Miss Sibley: They’re coming too late.

Mrs. Holt: No, they mustn’t be too late. Take that Red Cross flag, Mrs. West, and signal them.

(She does so.)

Mrs. West: They see it. They’re cheering as they come.

Mrs. Holt (slowly rising and taking a deep breath): Dr. Holt will hear those cheers. And he’ll know he’s saved, that we’re all saved, that we’re alive and unharmed, and still clean in body and soul.

Mrs. West: Yes, we’re alive. (Inspecting her emptied treasure bags) But look what it’s cost.

Miss Sibley (bitterly): Cost whom?

Mrs. West (with widening magnanimity): Cost all of us.

Miss Sibley (staring down the trap door): How about the woman down there?

Mrs. Holt (her face uplifted): God has been good to us.

Miss Sibley (unsteadily): Why don’t either of you answer me? How about her?

Mrs. West: I wasn’t thinking about her. I was thinking how close those bluejackets sound. In another minute they’ll be here in this square.

Miss Sibley (wide-eyed above the open trap): Listen! What’s that?

Mrs. West: What was it?

Mrs. Holt: It was a petty officer’s whistle, down the street. It was our deliverers.

Miss Sibley: No, it wasn’t a whistle. And it wasn’t in the street. (Staring through trap) It was down there.

Mrs. West: But what was it?

Miss Sibley (throatily, with her hand against her heart): It—it sounded like a woman’s scream.

Curtain

WEATHERED OAK

Abbie (proudly): There you are, as bright as a new pin. (She buttons Ephriam’s bed-jacket, pats his shoulder, smoothes the coverlet.)

Ephriam (complainingly): You ain’t done my hair yet.

(Abbie during the ensuing dialogue wrings out her washcloth, gathers up utensils, and pushes her wheeled washstand down against right wall.)

Silas (teasingly): She knows you ain’t got enough to bother with, you ol’ baldpate.

Uriah (darkly): Do some good if she’d comb the tangles out o’ his brains.

Ephriam: My brain’s as good as yours is, you ornery-tongued old tree toad.

Uriah (as he taps his forehead): How about that billion-dollar gold mine?

Ephriam: I’ve got my gold mine all right. And when they open up the mother lode they’ll find almost as much yellow as in your old carcass. And that’d make some mine.

Uriah: You got bats in your belfry.

Ephriam: Mebbe I have. (Up on one elbow, and accusingly) But I don’t wet the bed like a two-year-old and git told I’m goin’ to be put in diapers again.

Uriah (also up): I’ll be hornswiggled if I’ll take that from a spavined old maverick like you.

Abbie (severely, as to children): Boys, behave yourselves. (With a reproving fingershake) On a lovely morning like this. I’m ashamed of you.

(They calm down under her admonishing frown, plainly anxious for her approval.)

Ephriam (stubbornly): You ain’t fixed my hair.

Uriah: That’s a fine-comb job.

Abbie (as she goes to Ephriam with comb and brush): But I haven’t finished yet. (She gives him a dusting of talcum powder, gently rubs his old body and smiles as he arches his back like a stroked cat.)

Ephriam: That sure eases them lumbago twinges. (He twists about.) Just a leetle along that shoulder there.

Abbie: How’s that?

Ephriam: Fine and dandy. (He pats her arm as she proceeds to comb and part his sparse locks and then smooth them with a hair brush. She loiters a little over one love-lock, which she twines about her finger. This brings a snort from the other two.)

Silas (jealously): I don’t see why that old frog should get more fixin’ up than we do, Uriah.

Ephriam (in tremulous-voiced triumph): She knows she’s got something to work on, with a good-looker like me.

Abbie (proudly): Of course I do. Just see how handsome you are. (As she holds the mirror so Ephriam can study himself, which he does with obvious satisfaction, Uriah makes a retching motion over the near-by basin.)

Silas (with disdain): Reg’ler village sheik, ain’t he?

Uriah: Yep, the heart-breaker o’ Hospital Hill.

Silas: The Don Wan o’ the old men’s ward.

(Abbie carries her utensils to the table, ignoring their gabble.)

Ephriam (testily): And the owner of a pint of red-eye that ain’t goin’ to wet your pizened gullets this day.

(The other two, at that, exchange glances and cackle mysteriously. Abbie turns and regards the trio, with open and maternal approval.)

Abbie: There, you’re all fixed up for Doctor Saunders. (She goes to the table.) And I want quietness, remember, while I do my writing here.

Ephriam: Doc’s late this morning. (His troubled glance on Abbie as she writes.) He ain’t givin’ us the time he used to. You boys notice how he’s kind o’ cold and distant with our Abbie this week?

Silas: It’s Abbie got kind o’ frosted round the edges.

Uriah: What’s come between ’em?

Ephriam (troubled): Abbie sure ain’t herself this last few days.

Abbie (looking up from her writing): What was that, Mr. Oatman?

Ephriam (evasively): Them your records you’re fillin’ in, Abbie?

Abbie (reprovingly): Miss Smithers, please.

Ephriam: Them your records you’re writin’ out, Miss Smithers?

Uriah: Can’t the girl write her sweetie without you nosin’ in?

Silas: She don’t need to write him. He’s coming through that door any minute.

Abbie (as she glances at the door, almost defiantly): What’s that to me? (She forces a smile and turns to them.) You three are all I’ve got now.

Silas: I thought you and the Doc was all set for light housekeepin’.

Abbie (with defensive coldness): What gave you that idea?

Silas: I ain’t so deep in my dotage I can’t spot a lovebug when it’s under my nose.

Abbie (with protective curtness): It seems to have got into your brain.

Ephriam: But we ain’t so dodderin’, Abbie. We’ve seen more’n you imagine. And we all know what’s between you and the Doc.

Abbie (emphatically): There’ll soon be a world between Dr. Saunders and me.

Ephriam: What does that mean?

Abbie: It means Doctor Saunders is going to China, to work for the Red Cross. He feels it’s his only chance.

Ephriam: His chance for what?

Abbie (not without bitterness): For success. He wants to be a surgeon. And a surgeon can’t start up here without money, no matter how good he is.

Uriah: He’s good, all right. Nobody ever cleared up my bladder trouble the way that man did.

Ephriam (deep in thought): About what would it take, maybe, for a young saw-bones to get goin’ under his own steam in a town like this?

Abbie (coldly): About what he’d earn after five years of hard work in the Far East.

Ephriam: Five years is a long time. (He shakes his head.) ’Tain’t fair.

Uriah: It sure ain’t.

Silas: Wastin’ his best years on a bunch o’ rice-eatin’ pagans!

Abbie (as she turns back to her writing): He won’t consider them wasted. And I’ll be grateful if you’ll keep from prying into my personal affairs.

Uriah: Hoity-toity!

Silas: Them ructions come hard when you’re young.

Ephriam: Shouldn’t be no ructions. (Purposively.) I’d like a word with that young man when he makes his rounds this mornin’.

Abbie (rising): Well, here he is.

(Dr. Saunders, who enters briskly, all in white, is attractive, energetic, and almost thirty. As he studies the three charts he looks up, from time to time, at Abbie’s unresponsive face. Getting no satisfaction from that, he turns to his three patients.)

Dr. Saunders: I can see these three lads don’t need much looking into this morning.

Silas (uneasily): We ain’t as sound as we look.

Dr. Saunders (to Uriah): How’s the heart today?

(He applies the stethoscope, watching Abbie.)

Uriah (stoutly): Hittin’ on all eight.

Dr. Saunders (pocketing stethoscope): Yes, hitting nicely. (He turns to Ephriam.) How are the shooting pains this morning?

Ephriam (as Saunders studies Abbie): Easin’ off consid’rable, Doc. And it’ll sure be a feather in your cap if you rid me o’ them twinges.

Dr. Saunders (easily): We’ll fix ’em.

Silas (jealously): How about me?

Saunders: You’re O.K.

Ephriam (pulling him closer): Did you get my mail, Doc?

Dr. Saunders: Not yet. I’ll have a look when I’m through my rounds.

(Silas reaches over and nudges Uriah, who taps his forehead.)

Silas: Expectin’ a windfall, Eph?

Ephriam: You mind your own business.

(Saunders draws Abbie downstage, but she refuses to meet his gaze.)

Dr. Saunders (earnestly): Listen, Honey. We can’t go on like— (He is interrupted by the annunciator from the hallway outside. The metallic voice repeats: “Calling Doctor Saunders. Doctor Saunders wanted in the surgery.”) Hell! (He goes out, pocketing his stethoscope. Abbie, her face set, goes back to her table and writing. The three old men watch her. The bird outside the window breaks into song once more. Ephriam shifts and squirms and finally reaches in under his mattress and produces an old briar pipe.)

Ephriam (coaxingly): How about a puff or two now, Abbie?

Abbie (with a conspiratorial glance through the door): Not yet. Hornick will be around any minute now, remember. (Sternly) Put it back.

Ephriam (meekly): Yes, ma’am.

(The three old men eye the girl as she writes. Then they listen to the song from the treetops outside and blink at the sunlight.)

Uriah: Spring’s come again, Silas.

Silas (still blinking at the light): Yep. She’s comin’ late this year.

Ephriam: She always does.

Uriah: But she’s here all right. Makes you feel kind o’ good, don’t it?

Silas: Yep, like a four-year-old.

Uriah: That’s a robin singin’ out there.

Ephriam: Robin my eye! That’s a rusty grackle, you old galoot.

Uriah (raising up and listening): Rusty grackle be damned! I know a robin when I hear one.

Ephriam (shrilly): That ain’t no robin.

Abbie (warningly, as she writes): Quiet, please.

Silas (with a sigh): That sunlight sure feels good to my old carcass. ’Twas about this time we’d hike down to the swimmin’ hole and do belly-whoppers in the frog spawn. (He cackles and blinks at Uriah.) More’n once, you old varmint, I made you chaw bacon.

Uriah (dreamingly): Do you mind how, about this time o’ year, we’d be sneakin’ out the side door after supper and streelin’ off to that stretch o’ road along the river they used to call Lover’s Lane?

Silas: And meetin’ a girl there, by moonlight.

Uriah (heaving a sigh): Them was great times, Si.

Silas: Don’t seem so long ago, with that robin singin’ away out there, same as in the old days.

Ephriam (stubbornly): That ain’t no robin.

Uriah: He’s deffer’n a doorpost, Silas. Sure it’s a robin.

Ephriam (defiantly): It ain’t.

Uriah (loudly): It is.

Abbie (with a warning hiss): Be careful there. Here comes Miss Hornick.

Ephriam (upon one elbow): Who’s comin’?

Abbie: The Supervisor. Get down!

(The three old men worm lower and relax into passivity as Miss Hornick strides into the room, a sheet over her arm. She is oldish and angular, authoritative and acidulous. Her eagle eye, skirting the room, rests on the three trays of empty dishes. Her bony finger points to them.)

Miss Hornick: What does that mean?

Abbie (deferentially): They should have gone back. But my patients were very unsettled this morning.

Miss Hornick: Unsettled. (She inspects the empty plates.) Unsettled from overeating.

Ephriam: Why, I don’t eat no more’n a canary.

(Silas hoots.)

Silas: You mean an ostrich, don’t you?

Miss Hornick (holding out sheet, with her finger poked through a hole in one end): And what does that mean?

(The old men eye one another.)

It means there’s been smoking in this ward again, smoking in bed.

(The old men cringe under her eagle eye.)

You will mend that hole, Miss Smithers, and mend it promptly and neatly. And you’ll report to me the next patient who smokes in this ward.

Abbie: Yes, Miss Hornick.

(As the Supervisor turns to inspect the charts a series of quavery and low-noted moans arise from the three beds.)

Miss Hornick (leaning over Uriah): Are you in pain?

Uriah (dolorously): It’s my back, ma’am. She’s sure actin’ up today.

Miss Hornick (to Abbie): How about an enema?

Uriah (promptly): No thank you, ma’am.

Miss Hornick (turning to Silas and jerking his pillow straight): And you?—You’ve got a wife, haven’t you?

Silas (hesitatingly): Yes, worse luck.

Miss Hornick: Then why don’t you go home to her?

Silas: Did you ever see her? Huh, did you ever hear her?

Miss Hornick (picking up a match end): Of course not.

Silas (with finality): Well, I have. For forty-odd years. (He screws his face up.) She’s got a tongue like a puff adder. When she gits layin’ down the law she could talk the ears off a cast-iron monkey.

Miss Hornick: You probably needed it.

Silas (settling lower in his bed): What I need for my few remainin’ days is peace and quiet.

Miss Hornick (consulting his chart): A hospital is for the ailing.

Silas (dolorously): Well, I’m ailin’, all right. (He places a hand on his heart and tries to look pathetic.) This poor old ticker o’ mine is just about played out.

Miss Hornick (as she feels his pulse): Fiddlesticks! (To Abbie) He’s getting his digitalis, isn’t he?

Abbie: Yes, Miss Hornick.

Silas (hopefully): The old pump’d swing stronger if I’d a sizable slug o’ firewater from the dispensary.

Miss Hornick (picking up an apple core from the floor): It would swing stronger if you weren’t always munching apples between meals. (To Abbie) And you’ve got to stop those apples being smuggled in here on visitors’ day. You’d think this hospital was a cider factory.

Uriah: Abbie says they’re good for our bowels.

Miss Hornick (tartly): Kindly leave your bowels to me.

Uriah (meekly): You’re welcome to ’em, ma’am.

Silas (sotto-voce): Sweets to the sweet!

Miss Hornick (to Ephriam as she notices his twitchings): And you?

Ephriam: It’s them shootin’ pains again, ma’am. Up and down both sides. Wow! Oh! Wow! And every now and then creepin’ off into my laigs.

Miss Hornick (trying to uncover his legs, but he resists): A little exercise wouldn’t hurt those legs.

Ephriam: What?

Miss Hornick: I say you’d be better out of that bed.

Ephriam (in a panic): Not me!

Miss Hornick: Yes, you. Dr. Duncan says there’s nothing to keep you from going home tomorrow.

Ephriam: Doc Saunders don’t say that!

Miss Hornick: But I say you’d be better at home.

Ephriam (aghast): Home? But I ain’t got no home.

Silas: All he’s got is a million-dollar gold mine.

Miss Hornick (to Abbie): He’s a mental, of course.

Ephriam (proudly): You bet I’m mental. I can think as straight as the next man. And that mine o’ mine ain’t no dream. Doc Saunders seen the papers. And there’ll be some crow-eatin’ ’round here when my check comes in.

Miss Hornick (turning to Uriah, at a louder moan from him): What’s the matter with you?

Uriah (quaveringly): It’s them chest pains again. They—they just about wear me out.

Miss Hornick (prodding his body): You’re as fat as a seal. And your discharge will be made out tomorrow. You’ve had steam heat and good food all winter. (She consults the chart from the bed end.) And two ounces of brandy twice a day. (Suspiciously, to Abbie) Who ordered that brandy for ward patients?

Abbie: Dr. Saunders said it would be good for their tired old hearts.

Ephriam (indignantly): My heart ain’t tired. She pumps as strong as yours.

Miss Hornick: Then a little open air is what you need. The whole three of you.

Uriah: But them tubes o’ mine still bother me on a damp day. (He proves it by a fit of forced coughing.)

Miss Hornick: You needn’t worry about dampness. It’s spring now.

Silas (loyally): You can’t bank too much on spring bein’ here, ma’am. (He shakes a dolorous head.) We might have a spell o’ bad weather any time now.

Miss Hornick (with finality): You’ll have your discharge any time now. And until you’re up and out of that bed there’ll be no more smoking and drinking in this ward. Is that clear?

All Three (meekly and in unison): Yes, ma’am.

Miss Hornick (to Abbie): Get those trays where they belong. (She looks about with disapproval as Abbie carries out the trays.) This is a hospital, and not a bunkhouse. (She lifts her head and sniffs.) And if I smell tobacco smoke around here again you’ll all get three ounces of castor oil.

All Three: Yes, ma’am. (They writhe a little under her stern glance and feel better when Abbie returns to the ward. When Abbie bends over them to smooth their sheets, Miss Hornick turns on her.)

Miss Hornick: Kindly give your attention to the sheet that needs it, the sheet you let one of those old malingerers burn a hole in.

Abbie: Yes, Miss Hornick.

(The three old men watch Abbie as she takes up needle and thread and unfolds the sheet. They make accusatory signs to one another as Miss Hornick, with tight-lipped preciseness, rearranges the things on the table.)

Miss Hornick: And I want this ward kept in order.

Silas (hesitatingly, as she crosses to the door): Excuse me, lady. But—but could we have that checkerboard back?

Miss Hornick: What checkerboard?

Silas: The one you took away from us last Sunday afternoon.

Miss Hornick: No, you can’t have it back. This isn’t a gambling den. It’s supposed to be a hospital.

Silas (meekly): Yes, ma’am.

(The three pairs of old eyes watch the supervisor as she turns and walks out of the room.)

Ephriam: The damned old cat.

Silas: She’s just a pismire, that woman.

Uriah: Dried up old hen.

Abbie (as she sews): Hush, all of you.

Ephriam: It’s enough to drive a man to drink. Drink! That’s a thought. (He sits up, at that, and feels under his mattress. He brings out a bag of peppermints, eats one, and sees the other two old men eying him. His mood softens.) Heck, boys, I wouldn’t hold out on you. We’re one for all and all for one here. (He passes the bag.) Sweeten up on them, you old roosters.

(Uriah and Silas eat a peppermint or two while Ephriam digs deeper under his mattress for his pint of red-eye. He finally finds the flask and grunts with satisfaction. Then discovers that the flask is empty. He looks at the other two as they look blandly back at him.)

Silas (innocently): What’s wrong, Eph?

Ephriam (half out of bed in his anger): What shorthorn swiped my booze?

Abbie: Quiet.

Uriah: What’re you talkin’ about, anyway?

Ephriam: You know damn’ well what I’m talkin’ about, you claim-jumpin’ old skunk. (He gets out of bed and shakes the empty bottle at him.) You stole my bourbon on me.

Uriah: Who? Me?

Ephriam: Yes, you.

Silas: How d’you know it didn’t leak out?

Ephriam: Leak out? Uriah’s the only thing that leaks around this ward. And I’m going to brain him with this bottle.

(Abbie intervenes by crossing to him as he starts for the other bed. But she first gives a guarded look out the door.)

Abbie: Get back in that bed. And give me that bottle. (She goes to the window with the bottle, when Ephriam is back in bed, and throws the flask as far as she is able. Silas and Uriah chortle when a shout of protest comes up from the distance.)

Ephriam (to himself): I called ’em pards, and all they are is thievin’ polecats.

Uriah: What’s the good o’ bellyachin’ about a swallow or two of licker?

Ephriam (threateningly): I’ll give you more’n a bellyache.

Abbie (intervening): You must be quiet, all of you. Supposing Hornick happened along.

Ephriam (still fuming): I could brain her with a bed-pan.

Silas: I’d like to operate on her. And I know what I’d cut out first.

Abbie: You pretend to be friends, and quarrel like this.

Ephriam: Friends don’t take licker from you in your sleep. Them’s snakes in the grass.

Abbie: Well, sleep’s better for you than bourbon. And that’s what you ought to all do now, have a nice sleep.

Ephriam (eying his comrades): Can’t sleep in a nest o’ copperheads.

Uriah (hopefully): What we need is soothin’ down. Ain’t that right, Si? A puff or two at the old pipe to quieten down them twitchin’ pains.

Silas (pregnantly): I reckon a pin-feather girl’d never realize what a puff or two means to an old smoker.

Abbie (trying not to weaken): You heard what Miss Hornick said.

Uriah: That was just a diarr’hea of ‘don’ts.’

Ephriam: Ergot is what that old girl wants.

Silas (fretfully): A smoke is what I want.

Uriah (inspiredly): And you don’t need to see what you don’t want to see, girlie. Get me?

Abbie (with pretended firmness): There must be no smoking in this ward.

Uriah: Of course.

Silas: You said it.

Ephriam: Not a puff.

Abbie: I forbid it, remember.

(They watch her as she goes to the hall, looks out, and then closes the door to within six inches of the jamb. Then three old hands dig down under mattress ends and disinter pipes and matches and makings. Ephriam and Uriah have briars; Silas runs to cigarettes and rolls his own. There is an almost voluptuous sort of deliberation in their movements as they make ready to smoke.)

Silas (blandly, to Abbie): You might be studyin’ that robin redbreast out there in the treetop.

Ephriam (mutinously): It’s a rusty grackle.

Silas (explosively): It’s a robin.

(Abbie moves the electric fan so that its whirring blades face the open windows. Then she turns her own chair so that her back is to the three beds and her gaze can command the door crack. The old men watch her as she resumes her sewing.)

Is the coast clear, girlie?

Abbie (looking out and nodding): Now go to sleep, all of you.

All Three: Sure. (They sit up in bed and light up. Peace and contentment descend on them. They puff in silence as they watch the sunlight and listen to the bird in the treetop. Abbie, with her back to them, sews on, a faint smile on her face. Then she suddenly sobers.)

Abbie (at the door crack): Listen! (She signals a warning and three old hands hide away the forbidden weed and three old heads subside on pillows.) It’s all right. I thought it was Hornick. (She resumes her sewing, with her back to them, and the smoke coils once more float up through the air.)

Ephriam (between meditative puffs): If that old hen ever has you fired, girlie, you come to me.

Uriah (scornfully): What could you do?

Ephriam: I’ve got me a mine up north. And mighty soon she’s goin’ to just about make me a millionaire.

Uriah (relighting his pipe): Mine my eye! He’s no more got a mine than that girl’s got a wooden leg.

Silas: I’ve seen ’em both, and they don’t look like wood to me!

Ephriam (coming out of his peace): Then how about them papers I signed near a week ago? What’re the Guggenheims offerin’ me thirty thousand down for if I ain’t got a claim?

Silas: Thirty thousand dollars! You ain’t got thirty dollars, thirty dollars to keep them old bones o’ yours out o’ the Potter’s Field when you bump off.

Ephriam: How about them transfer papers Doc Saunders witnessed for me right here in this ward?

Uriah: Dream on, you crooked-thinkin’ old quartz-pounder. Any claim you got is in that delooded old bean o’ yours.

Ephriam: Wait and see, you wizened up squirt o’ misery. I’ve prospected from Cobalt up to Flin-Flon and I’ve got me a mine on Pickle Crick that’ll make Noranda look like the tail end of a tommy-rocker.

Silas: And when you git your money, Mister Vanderbilt, I s’pose you’ll stock this pesthouse with gold-plated Jimmies?

Ephriam (as he sits and smokes and studies Abbie’s back): I’ve mebbe got me a better use than that for it.

Uriah: Then you want to use it quick, you storm-pounded old schooner, for your time on the troubled waters o’ livin’ ain’t goin’ to be any too prolonged.

Ephriam (stoutly): I’ll outlive you, you bed-wettin’ old has-been.

Silas (reprovingly): That ain’t fittin’ language to be usin’ in a lady’s hearin’. And when I indulges in the weed I yearns for peace.

Uriah (as he languidly exhales): A whiff of the old weed sure does ease you down.

Silas (after a luxurious puff): Kind o’ sootherin’, ain’t it, a sniff or two o’ tobacco?

Ephriam (watching the smoke coil up): It’s soothed me in some demned queer places this last sixty years. I’ve pulled on a pipestem when it’s been one hundred and five in Death Valley and fifty below in the Yukon.

Uriah (with languid disdain): And you was both places to wanst, I s’pose?

Ephriam (with placid venom): Where you’ll be sizzlin’ on your fanny, b’fore long, will make Death Valley feel like a refrigeratin’ tank.

Abbie (over her shoulder, after inspecting her patched sheet): Be careful of sparks, boys.

Silas (slapping at his pillow end): We sure will, girlie.

(Abbie turns and watches them as they puff in silence. Her face softens with a smile of sympathy and understanding. Then a frown supplants the smile as she gives a warning hiss and her hand goes out to the near-by doorknob. She swings the door shut.)

Abbie: Down, all of you. (She holds the door shut as someone outside tries to open it. She signals the three smokers, who promptly hide away their pipes and makings. By the time an impatient knock sounds on the door they have wriggled down in their beds, where they lie flat, like three spent old men, with the coverlets pulled up to their chins.) Just a minute. (She shifts the fan, to blow out the last of the smoke, then slowly opens the door, admitting Dr. Saunders.) Oh, it’s you.

Dr. Saunders (studying her face): I don’t see it.

Abbie: See what?

Dr. Saunders: Any welcome in those eyes.

Abbie: Why should there be?

Dr. Saunders (as he holds out envelope in his hand): But I’ve got news.

Abbie (her face hardening): About China?

Dr. Saunders (nodding toward the beds): No, about one of our old musketeers. (He glances toward them.) Oh, they’re all asleep.

Abbie (pointedly, as their glances lock): But I have wakened up.

Dr. Saunders: What does that mean?

Abbie: It means I know, now, you haven’t much faith in me.

Dr. Saunders (tensely): That’s not true. (He takes her hand, but she draws it away.) We have to face facts. And I can’t ask you to starve on a back street.

Abbie: There are different ways of starving.

Dr. Saunders: But I’ve got to get my start. Love can’t always come first, Honey.

Abbie (almost bitterly): So I’m discovering.

Dr. Saunders: But this isn’t going to last forever. I’ll be coming back for you, some fine day.

Abbie (with a glance toward the bed): When we are old and spent, like them.

Dr. Saunders (his pride hurt): It’s you who don’t seem to have much faith in me.

Abbie: I haven’t much faith in China. (She shudders) With all that shooting.

Dr. Saunders: And with all that surgery.

Abbie: But China’s thirteen thousand miles away. I measured it on the map. (She tries to keep the quaver out of her voice.) If you’re a good doctor there should be a chance for you here.

Dr. Saunders (patiently): There would be, Abbie, if I had enough to tide us over until they found out how good I was.

Abbie: I wish I could share your faith in yourself.

Dr. Saunders: But you’ve got to have a nest egg, nowadays, or go hungry for a year or two. And with the wolf at the door, day after day, you’d soon find love flying out the window.

Abbie (with finality): So I’m going to lose you!

(Before he can respond to that he is startled by a loud moan from Ephriam. He turns and crosses to the latter’s bed, the envelope still in his hand.)

Dr. Saunders (promptly professional): Not feeling so good?

Ephriam: I’m feelin’ lower’n I felt all winter.

Dr. Saunders (cheerily, after counting his pulse): Then I’ve got the medicine that’ll fix you up. (He takes a slip of paper from the envelope.) And it’s right here in my hand.

Ephriam (cowering back): It ain’t my discharge?

Dr. Saunders: Not on your life. (He thrusts the paper into Ephriam’s tremulous old hand.) It’s the Guggenheim check for your Pickle Creek claim. Thirty thousand dollars!

(As Ephriam blinks at it uncomprehendingly the other two old men sit up in bed, all eyes.)

Silas: That ain’t real money?

Dr. Saunders: It’s as good as gold.

Uriah (incredulous): Don’t let that pill-slinger string you, Eph.

Ephriam (dreamily): Thirty thousand dollars. (He scratches his head.) That’s quite a mess o’ money, ain’t it?

Dr. Saunders: Of course it is. You’re rich, man, rich! And I’ve brought this along to celebrate. (From his hip pocket he produces a pint flask.)

Silas (quaveringly): What’s that?

Dr. Saunders: Bourbon.

Ephriam (in a daze): Thirty thousand dollars. (He inspects the paper.) You say this can be turned into real money?

Dr. Saunders: Once you’ve put your name across the back. (He turns to Abbie.) Nurse, we’re going to need three glasses here. No, make it four.

(Abbie goes out for the glasses. Uriah, in the excitement, reaches for his briar; Silas digs out his makings.)

Uriah: I’ll be hornswiggled.

Silas: There’s a nigger in the woodpile somewhere.

Dr. Saunders (touching the check): You can’t argue this away, boys.

(Abbie returns with the glasses.)

Ephriam’s in the money class now. And for that, being his doctor, I prescribe a drink.

(But bourbon, for once, has no immediate appeal for Ephriam. He sits with his old brow wrinkled up, deep in thought.)

Uriah (proddingly): It’s licker, Eph.

Silas: Good old bourbon.

Ephriam: Wait a minute. . . . I got a thing or two to untangle here. (He raises his wistful old eyes to the Doctor’s face.) Seein’ this is good money, Doc, is there any way we can fix it so three old sons o’ misery won’t be turned out of here?

Dr. Saunders (laughing at his concern): With a roll like that? Of course.

Ephriam (more curtly): How come?

Dr. Saunders: Well, for one thing, you could be registered as pay patients. You could have private rooms, for the rest of your days.

Ephriam: Private rooms? Each one of us walled up by hisself? (He looks at his two old friends and shakes his head.) No, siree. None o’ that. We stick together to the end. One for all and all for one.

Uriah: Right you are!

Silas: How about that bourbon?

Ephriam (with deliberation): Just a minute. Now, Doc, man to man, would two-thirds o’ this carry us on to the end, even though we hung out longer’n we’ve a right to hope?

(The Doctor catches Abbie’s eye and hesitates over his answer, even before her reproving, “Please!”)

Dr. Saunders: You’ll hang out for many a year. But twenty thousand should keep you in clover.

Ephriam: All of us?

Dr. Saunders: Easily.

Ephriam (with decision): Then that settles it.

Uriah: The licker’s waitin’, Eph.

Ephriam: I’m goin’ to straighten somethin’ out before I muddle my old bean with bourbon.

Abbie (to Dr. Saunders): He doesn’t seem to understand.

Ephriam (with unexpected vigor): I understand more’n you imagine. (He chuckles and points to the table.) Girlie, just tote that writin’ pen o’ yours over to me.

< stage>(As Abbie gets the pen and the Doctor puts down the bottle of bourbon to hold a supporting book while Ephriam laboriously inscribes his name on the back of the check, Silas’s lean old arm reaches out and quietly lifts away the whisky flask. Uriah and Silas exchange signs, and each take a hurried swig from the bottle.)

Abbie (seeing the theft): Shame on you.

Silas (wiping his mouth): I sure needed that to steady my heart action. A day like this is upsettin’ to men o’ my years.

Uriah (as he blinks at Ephriam, who is still studying the check): Thirty thousand bones! The damned old hypocrite. I thought he was headed for the poorhouse.

Ephriam: Abbie, come over here.

(She crosses to him.)

And you come a little closer, Doc. (He sits a moment with his eyes closed.) You know, money only means a lot when you ain’t got it.

Dr. Saunders (grimly): You’ve said it.

Ephriam: And you ain’t got it. And not havin’ it is takin’ you out to China, half a world away from this here girl that’s so crazy about you she can’t see straight.

Abbie (with dignity): I’m not quite that crazy, thank you.

Ephriam (enjoying his new power): Shut up. You are. (To the Doctor) And you’re crazy about her. I seen that six months ago.

Dr. Saunders (stoutly): Of course I am.

Ephriam (to the Doctor): But even a smart young saw-bones like you can’t start up without backin’, these days.

Dr. Saunders (starting back): What are you driving at?

Ephriam (with quavering intensity): I’m drivin’ at this, Doc. There ain’t a finer girl in shoe leather than our Abbie. All winter long she’s planned and worked and schemed to bring a little sunshine into our empty old lives. And I’m a-goin’ to fix it so she can do the same for you.

Dr. Saunders (with a glance at Abbie): She’s done it already.

Ephriam: Of course she has. And you’ll need all the rest she can give you. And so’s you can team up and get set here I’m a-goin’ to grubstake you until you strike pay dirt.

Abbie: No; no! You can’t do that.

Ephriam (as his bony old hand slaps the check): Oh, yes, I can. We’ll split this old bank check three ways, two for us and one for you.

Dr. Saunders (firmly): You can’t give away money like that. Not to me!

Ephriam (shrewdly): I ain’t givin’ you money. Not by a long shot. I’m investin’ in your future. And once you get goin’ I’ll expect it back, with interest, ev’ry demned penny of it. Is that plain?

Dr. Saunders: No, it isn’t.

Ephriam (turning to Abbie): You’d humor an old man, wouldn’t you, girlie?

Abbie: Not when he’s being foolish.

Dr. Saunders (emphatically): Not foolish—crazy!

Ephriam: All right; I’m crazy. But d’you know what I’m goin’ to do if you cross me in this? (Threateningly) I’m goin’ to drink my old head off. (He reaches out for the bourbon bottle and finds it gone. He scowls darkly at Silas and then at Uriah, who refuse to meet his eye.) Where’s that licker?

Silas (blandly): What licker?

Uriah: I ain’t seen no licker.

Ephriam (half out of bed): You thievin’ old sassenach, I’ll skin you alive if you don’t prodooce that bottle.

Uriah: I ain’t got no bottle.

Ephriam (turning to Silas): Then I’ll knock your head off, you bleary-eyed old billygoat, if you’re wolfin’ red-eye that don’t belong to you. I’ll sock you one that’ll—

Dr. Saunders (admonishingly): Here, here. This won’t do. You’re in a hospital ward, remember.

(But Ephriam, with a bleat of triumph, unearths the bottle from under Silas’s pillow end. He uncorks it, looks defiantly around, and is about to apply the flask to his lips when Uriah interrupts him with an indignant shout of protest.)

Uriah: That ain’t your licker, you claim-jumpin’ old Judas. It belongs to the Doctor.

Ephriam (arrested): So it does. So it does. (He slowly recorks the bottle and hands it back to its owner, who holds it up and estimates its contents.)

Dr. Saunders: It belongs to all of us.

Ephriam (stubbornly, as he parades his check): The same as this does.

Silas (eying the bottle): You’d better humor him, Doc.

Uriah: I’ve known him forty-odd years and I ain’t ever seen him argued off his trail.

Dr. Saunders (earnestly and seriously): But it won’t do, Ephriam. A man has to make his own way in the world.

Ephriam: That’s what I’m givin’ you a chance to do.

Dr. Saunders: It’s kind of you. But there are short cuts one can’t take.

Ephriam: You’d rather bog down in China for ten years?

Dr. Saunders: But I wouldn’t let a stranger do a thing like that for me.

Ephriam: I ain’t no stranger. And s’posin’ I ain’t doin’ it for you. S’posin’ I’m doin’ it for Abbie.

(Dr. Saunders, perplexed, looks at Abbie, who crosses to Ephriam’s bed and, with one hand on his shoulder, stands looking into his eyes.)

Ephriam: You’ve got to do it, girlie.

Abbie: I would if I could. But I’m not the one to decide. (She crosses to the window and looks out at the world all bathed in sunshine. The robin begins to sing.)

Ephriam (calling after her): Of course if this young whipper-snapper’d prefer ten years in China to you—

Dr. Saunders (in a voice of surrender):—Oh, Hell! (He goes to Abbie’s side.) I don’t want ten years in China. I want you. (He seems to forget the three watching old men as his arms go about her and he draws her closer. A triumphant whoop goes up from three old throats as the lovers seal the compact with a kiss that is neither cold nor short.)

Ephriam: That settles it. (He reaches for the bottle.) And now that bourbon can show what it was brought here for.

(What remains of the whisky is divided among the four glasses. Dr. Saunders, watching that distribution, says, “Medical allowance only!” and the three old men register disapproval of the smallness of the drink.)

Dr. Saunders (to Abbie): You’re in on this.

Ephriam: She’s in on everything, from this day to Kingdom Come.

(Dr. Saunders finds a medicine glass for her tot, and they all hold their drinks aloft. As they do so the door opens and Miss Hornick steps in. She stands watching them in grim disapproval as they drink.)

Miss Hornick: Just what I thought.

(Uriah gives a loud moan of “Ow-wow!” and Silas, worming down in bed, conceals himself under the coverlet. The young Doctor reaches for Abbie’s hand and holds it in his. Miss Hornick bristles with indignation.)

I won’t see this ward turned into a—a brothel. (She picks up Abbie’s medicine glass and sniffs at it.) You are dismissed from this hospital, Miss Smithers.

Ephriam (exultantly): You can’t dismiss her, you demned old crab.

Miss Hornick (ignoring him and facing Dr. Saunders): And I imagine there’ll be a prompt termination, Dr. Saunders, to your interneship in this institution.

Dr. Saunders: I terminate it here and now.

Ephriam (more exultantly): And you can’t hamstring him, either.

Miss Hornick: Silence. (She turns to the altogether unimpressed Abbie.) Kindly report at the office the moment you come off duty. (The Supervisor sweeps across the room and goes out, still tight-lipped with indignation. The two lovers stand silent. Silas emerges from under his coverlet.)

Ephriam: You two mavericks’ll have to mess along together, after all. There’s no backin’ out of it, after that blast.

Dr. Saunders (turning to Abbie, at the window): Nobody wants to back out of it, do they?

Abbie (as she clings to him): I want it to be as Ephriam said, till Kingdom Come! (Her arms go about him. Still close, they turn and look out at the sunlit treetops, from which the spring song of the bird comes in to them. The old men watch in silence.)

Silas (contentedly): Kind o’ nice, ain’t it, hearin’ that old robin singin’ his head off that away.

Ephriam (explosively): ’Tain’t a robin, you galoot. It’s a rusty grackle.

Silas (still louder): It’s a robin!

Ephriam (topping him): It’s a grackle! Ged demn it, it’s a grackle!

Curtain

ALEXANDER WAS GREAT

Macedonius (as he eats the grapes): What’s keeping the King?

Phormio: He’s still down at the river, counting up the loot. (He casually pours himself a goblet of wine from the royal urn and as casually downs it.) When he takes a town he cleans it up proper. And that bed won’t see him until he’s got the last ounce of gold aboard the royal barge.

Macedonius: Well, that’s what we’re here for. And it costs money to civilize the barbarian.

Phormio: He’ll get more than horse feed out of Palameta.

Macedonius (after a cautious look about): Did he get enough women to go around?

Phormio (disgustedly): Only enough for the cavalry. It’s those horse-tamers, of course, who always get the first picking.

Macedonius (as he takes a drink of wine and regards the moon): I could do with a wench myself, on a night like this. (He sniffs the night air and sighs.) This moonlight does queer things to a man.

Phormio: Watch your step, big boy. You’re a long way from home. And these barbarian women have a way with them. (He laughs and wipes his mouth.) When we were sacking the upper town this afternoon I found a little brown-eyed she-devil under a tent flap, and before—

Macedonius: Hssst! The King!

(They promptly stiffen and stand at attention as Alexander comes wearily downstage to the open tent front. He throws his shield across the couch and, listlessly unbuckling his sword belt, lets it drop, plainly for the guard to pick up.)

Alexander: Get me out of this hardware. It weighs a ton.

(They unbuckle the harnessed metal and place it in a tent corner. Alexander, relieved, rubs his tired shoulders and massages his ribs. He sighs and stretches as he wearily puts on a tunic of purple silk.)

I’m so tired I could sleep on a bed of camel-flakes.

Macedonius: Will you have meat and wine, Sire?

Alexander (leaning against the tent side and looking up at the stars) No, I’m too tired to eat. (He seats himself at the table, where he sits staring off into space, limp with weariness. Then he sees the inkhorn and pulls himself together.) Bring me a torch. And pens and a papyrus roll. (He sighs again, petulantly brushing the war maps from the table and then feeling the muscles of his sword arm.) You know, this fighting isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. It gets monotonous. I’m tired of slitting gizzards and cracking skulls.

Macedonius: But you’re conquering the world, Sire.

Alexander: Yes, and now that we’ve licked about everything in sight, I’m beginning to wonder what it’s all about.

Phormio: You’re doing it, Sire, for the glory of Greece.

Alexander (absently regarding him): Am I? Yes, I suppose so. But tonight I’ve got a backache, and a blister on my heel, and seven hundred prisoners to execute in the morning.

Phormio (anxiously): You’re saving the women, Sire?

Alexander: Not a woman. That’s what’s wrong with this army of mine. They’re fighting for girls, instead of Greece. And I won’t look so great if Aristotle ever gets that down on paper. (He looks at the inkhorn and the papyrus roll before him.) And I’ve got to get something down on paper.

Phormio (as the King sighs and takes up the pen): Do dispatches go out tonight, Sire?

Alexander (with another yawn of weariness): No; but I’ve got to get a letter off to the Queen before we break camp. Roxana will raise the roof if I don’t keep the camel routes busy telling her how much I miss her. (He tries the pen and irritably tosses it aside.) And that’s another thing I’ve got against women. They demand too much of a man. Even if you’re spilling blood all day they hang on to the belief you ought to spill ink half the night.

Macedonius and Phormio (dutifully, and as one man): Yes, Sire.

Alexander (as he sits back and studies the moon): There’s something wrong with things when the only breath of peace a man gets is on the battlefield. Yet I’ve stayed knee-deep in war because it’s kept me away from women. Women! And what they’ve done to me! Look at Roxana. She’s turned homelife into a dogfight. Look at Thessalonica. That sister of mine has soured my manhood. Look at Cleopatra. There’s another loving sister who’s nothing better than a serpent-begotten hellcat. Is it any wonder I keep away from Athens?

Macedonius: Every expedition, Sire, has widened the empire.

Alexander: And about every siege has been to sidestep a petticoat. (He sees and examines a piece of folded parchment lying beside the wine urn.) What’s this?

Macedonius (doing his best to be solemn): It’s a message from Thais, Sire, complaining about the sand fleas.

Alexander: Women again!

Macedonius: She says she’s fed up with tent life and hasn’t slept right since she left Athens.

Alexander: I should never have brought that woman into Asia with me.

Phormio: I fear, Sire, she will not remain long. She called me to her tent, just after supper, and complained again about the asparagus and roast boar. Then she said if she didn’t have asses’ milk to bathe in before tomorrow night at sundown she’d go back to a country that didn’t blister the skin off a woman.

Alexander (with wearied indifference): Then let her go, if that’s the way she feels. Give her six elephants and an escort and tell her to swim in asses’ milk back to Sparta.

Phormio: She says she won’t ride an elephant, Sire. It upsets her stomach.

Alexander: Then give her a camel train.

Phormio: She claims camels are worse, Sire.

Alexander (with a meditative scowl): That woman’s too hard to please. When she wanted to see something doing, I burnt Persepolis for her, royal palace and all. And then she complained it wasn’t much of a fire. And she wants to be amused at all hours of the night. (He sighs and shakes his head.) She’s like all the rest of them. She may be easy to look at, but she’s hard to live with. And she’s never satisfied. She’s got me so tired out I wish I could fight my way into some sun-blighted wilderness that doesn’t have a single woman in it.

Macedonius: You’ll feel different, Sire, after a good night’s rest.

Alexander (as he views the waiting couch): Yes; a good night’s sleep. Nine hours of sleep—alone. Nine hours of blessed slumber. (He is adjusting a leather pillow on the couch when he looks up quickly, startled by some unexpected sound disturbingly close to the tent.) What’s that?

Phormio (promptly the soldier on guard): Who goes there?

(Macedonius, with spear leveled, turns to the right. From the left Thalestris strides in, pushing Phormio curtly to one side and stopping short before the startled Alexander. She is an Amazon warrior, straight-limbed and large, very brown, and very good to look at. She is dressed in a leopardskin draped over a breastplate of polished metal. She carries a spear in her hand and one brown-skinned shoulder is bare as she stands composed and quite fearless, inspecting the Conqueror of the World.)

Alexander (plainly perplexed by her contours): Are you a woman?

Thalestris (in some doubt and disappointment): You aren’t Alexander, are you?

Alexander (resenting the insolence): How did you get through my lines?

Thalestris (her laugh is curt as she grounds her spear): Two of your guards tried to stop me, I remember. (She bunts the returning Macedonius unceremoniously away from the tent opening.) But I knocked their heads together and tossed them to the crocodiles in the river.

Alexander (resentfully eying the intruder): What gave you the right to kill two of my guards?

Thalestris: They wouldn’t listen to reason.

Alexander: What reason?

Thalestris: The fact that I’d fought my way across seven frontiers to get to this camp.

Alexander (with a snort of indifference): You came quite a way.

Thalestris (with a dangerous glow in her eye): Through seven hostile countries, to confront you.

Alexander (with the indifference of the exhausted): That must have been hard work for you. (He turns his back on her.) You probably need a bath.

Thalestris (the glow untouched by his insolence): I had that without asking for it, when I swam the river.

Alexander (looking her over): So you swam the river? (Edging a little away from her.) And what do you want of Alexander the King?

Thalestris (taking her turn at looking him over): So you’re Alexander, after all.

Alexander: Who are you?

Thalestris: I’m the woman who fought for thirty-five days to reach your side.

Alexander (backing farther away from her): For what reason?

Thalestris (coolly and quite to the point): That you might be the father of a child worthy of you. And of me.

Alexander: That sounds very interesting. But just at present, as a fighting man, I’m more interested in decreasing the population of Asia Minor than in increasing it.

Thalestris: Then you can regard this as a call to arms.

Alexander: To your arms, apparently.

Thalestris: They have won the right to receive you.

Alexander (widening the distance between them): Look here; I’m a respectable married man. And I’m not going to get mixed up with any woman again.

Thalestris: I must be the last of your conquests.

Alexander: Oh, no, you mustn’t I’ve—I’ve had enough of all that. And as these men of mine will tell you, I’m a very tired man tonight.

Thalestris: But you don’t get the point. I’m Thalestris, the Queen of the Amazons. You’re Alexander, the conqueror of the world. And only a born fighter like that is fit to be the father of my offspring.

Alexander (who has backed away as she advances): But if you’re a fighter, and I’m a fighter, isn’t there the ghost of a chance we’re going at this a little too strong?

Thalestris: What is better than strength? The strong rule the world.

Alexander: That’s all right, lady. But it’s possible to get too much of a good thing, when you pile it on from both sides. You wouldn’t want a family circle made up of two-legged wildcats, would you?

Thalestris: I want a son who is strong. And I fought my way here to get one.

Alexander: That may be a compliment to my manhood, but it’s certainly a slap at my soldiering. I’ve been told, more than once, that you she-archers are pretty quick on the scramble. But how did you ever get past those sentry lines of mine?

Thalestris: Oh, I’m rather used to outwitting men. That, in fact, is largely how I put in my time.

Alexander: And nothing could stop you?

Thalestris: Nothing. But I did get mixed up on the tents, on the way in. The first time, in fact, I got the wrong man. So I killed him.

Alexander (with an anxious gesture to his two officers, who have been standing there grimly at attention): And now you’re starting all over again on me? (He circles about to the other side of the couch.)

Macedonius (in a mutter to his campmate): I never saw the woman I’d trust.

Phormio (also between his teeth): What she wants isn’t affection. It’s an arrow through her umbilicus.

Alexander: So you got away with three of my men? (He glances at her spearhead, which is stained red.) On your spear there is the blood of a Greek. And I don’t like the look of it. For two pins I’d have you taken out back of our horse-pound and drawn and quartered as a spy.

Thalestris: Oh, no, you wouldn’t.

Alexander: Wouldn’t I? A little cold steel might be good for that mating ardor of yours.

Thalestris (as he studies her and becomes less bellicose): So you’d threaten a woman?

Alexander: Wasn’t that what you were doing to me? And not in a nice way, either.

Thalestris (viewing him with quiet contempt): You may be Alexander the Great to the rest of the world, but to me, from the way you’re acting, you’re merely a worm.

Alexander: All right. We’ll let it go at that. And no woman wants to waste her time on a worm.

Thalestris (coolly looking him over): I’m wondering if you’re as brave as they’ve tried to make you out. And if you’re any greater than other warriors.

Alexander (resenting the slur): You’re certainly brave enough, even to say it. A couple of speeches like that might bring a spearhead through your slats. I bumped Clitus off, remember, for much less than you’ve been saying.

Thalestris (with her quiet and confident smile): You don’t know me. (She moves the tent torch nearer to where he stands, the better to inspect his person.) Let me look you over. Your eyes aren’t so bad. But your legs are a bit knobby. (She shakes her head.) Frankly, I was looking for something much bigger. But that’s a kingly muscle on your sword arm.

Alexander (promptly reaching out for his sword): Would you like to see how it works?

Thalestris (knocking the sword aside with her spear butt): Ha, try anything like that and you’ll get more than you bargained for. (She thrusts her shoulders proudly back.) I’m Thalestris the Unbeaten.

Alexander: Are you, now? And you’re all steamed up with the idea you can give me my money’s worth?

Thalestris: I have come to find that out.

Alexander: Does that mean you want to fight?

Thalestris: No; I want a son.

(Alexander, once more backing about the couch end, considers her with wearied exasperation.)

Alexander: Tell that to your husband. It doesn’t interest me.

Thalestris: I have no husband.

Alexander: That fact also fails to interest me.

Thalestris (throwing her leopard skin back a little): Does the fact that I’m a woman fail to interest you?

Alexander: Not so much as the manly way you’re acting.

Thalestris (in a softened voice): But underneath it all, I’m still a woman.

Alexander: I have to keep reminding myself of that fact. And it doesn’t help much.

Thalestris (crossing to tent door and looking up at the stars): A woman in need of a mate!

Alexander (in a prompt note of warning): Then I wouldn’t take in too much of that moonlight. It seems to have the trick of lowering a lady’s boiling point. And you’re a long way from home, remember.

Thalestris: But Thalestris is still Thalestris.

Alexander: Without a doubt.

Thalestris: Without a mate.

Alexander: I’ve heard of other women equally embarrassed. But they’re usually not so vociferous about it.

Thalestris (going rapidly on and ignoring him): But I’ve thought it all out. I must fulfill my destiny. I must submit in order to triumph. And the instrument of my triumph is not important.

Alexander: I don’t know whether that means me or not. But I do know that it’s a decidedly casual way of talking about a man. Especially on a mission like yours.

Thalestris (turning back to him): You’re the only man worthy of it. And you have won the right.

(He falls away step by step as she advances.) Will you give me a son?

Alexander (indicating his guard, who cringes): Take Phormio. He’s a good healthy specimen.

Thalestris (with rather naïve solemnity): It must be by you.

Alexander: But people don’t do this sort of thing. They don’t, I mean, do it in this sort of way. (He stands off to study her as she confronts him, spear in hand.) I like your honesty. Men don’t get much of that from women. And I like that up-and-coming spirit of yours. But, frankly, how could you ever expect to lean on my shoulder and listen to me calling you “little one”?

Thalestris: I’m not asking for that sort of rubbish. It’s not what a man says that counts. It’s what he does.

Alexander (as the inkhorn and papyrus remind him of Roxana): Now and then it’s what he doesn’t do. And it puts a crimp in the family circle when your chickens come home to roost.

Thalestris: Are you a coward, even though you call yourself a soldier?

Alexander: Oh, I may be a hellion on the battlefield, but about bedtime I like to park my bones next to a little peace and quietness. (That takes his glance to the waiting couch.) And I’ve a hard day ahead of me tomorrow.

Thalestris: And you call yourself a soldier!

Alexander: Well, even a soldier has to keep his weather eye open.

Thalestris: And his heart closed!

Alexander (indicating his two motionless guards): I’m afraid you’re embarrassing these men of mine. They’re not used to this sort of thing in camp.

Thalestris: What Thalestris does is never questioned. Will you take me?

Alexander (after an uneasy inspection of her): I’m—I’m afraid you’re a little too husky for me. You see, I’ve always had a fondness for the pin-feather type, the—oh, you know, the almond-blossomy kind of chicken that wants to hang on a big shoulder and—

Thalestris (angrily interrupting him): But is that fair to your family name? Is it fair to your country? Is it fair to the world you’re trying to conquer. Is it fair to yourself? (She picks up the war map under her feet.) Remember, it will take a strong arm to hold your empire together, to carry on the work you’ll have to leave unfinished.

(Alexander, watching her as she seats herself on the couch end, also seats himself on the stool. He has become more thoughtful and more respectful.)

Alexander: You’re an intelligent woman, Thalestris. There’s no doubt of that. But the thing you mention doesn’t seem to work out. Parents, I’ve noticed, don’t always pass on their strong points. (He looks up to see Macedonius hesitatingly advance through the tent door, the embarrassed Phormio close behind him.)

Macedonius: Pardon, Sire, but hadn’t we better leave you to talk this out with the lady?

Thalestris (turning on him with quick impatience): Yes, get out, both of you.

(They gape at her, bewildered.)

Get out, or I’ll break you over my knee.

Alexander (to his men, as he holds Thalestris back): Yes, you’d better back out of it for a few minutes, boys. It seems to be rather a—a family affair. (He calls after them as they go) But don’t you men get too far away. (He re-enters the tent, reseats himself, and blinks down at Thalestris’s bare brown leg.) Now, let’s see, we were talking about eugenics, weren’t we. And that’s all people ever do, apparently—just talk about it.

Thalestris: Then it’s time for more than talk.

Alexander: But it never seems to get you anywhere. And as far as I can make out men and women just keep on liking each other and leave the rest to nature.

Thalestris: Exactly! A lot of impossible people keep falling in love and cluttering up the world with their impossible offspring. With weaklings. And in a few centuries, if this sort of thing goes on, you won’t see a fighter worth his salt.

Alexander: But why should we worry about that? We won’t be here.

Thalestris: We’ve got to think of the future.

Alexander: Frankly, I’m rather of the opinion men don’t look far ahead, on that particular point.

Thalestris: They must be made to.

Alexander: Well, I know one case where it won’t work out. And that’s with me. You may be the queen-bee of your own hive, and your word may be law in Hyrcania. But around here I happen to be the commander-in-chief. And when you barge in with your prattle about perfecting the race overnight it leaves me pretty cold.

Thalestris: I can endure your coldness as long as you remain intelligent.

Alexander: Then what is it you want me to think about?

Thalestris: Think about those cavalry horses of yours. How about those thoroughbreds you’re so proud of? How about your own horse, your Bucephalus that all the Thracians talk so big about? Wasn’t he bred from the finest and strongest stock that could be found?

Alexander (able to smile at her intensity): There’s just one small difficulty. I’m not a horse, you see.

Thalestris (toweringly indignant as she confronts him): You’re not even the man I thought you were.

Alexander: Probably not; probably not!

Thalestris: I can see, now, that you’re merely the worn-out shell of one.

Alexander: I might surprise you.

Thalestris: You’ve passed your peak, and now you’re on the downgrade. And when you die, your line will die with you.

Alexander: Don’t be too sure of that.

Thalestris: You don’t seem to have much spirit left.

Alexander (rising indignant before her): I’ve been on the battle front since I was fifteen years old, and I’ve never once been defeated.

Thalestris (rising proudly beside him): As a matter of fact, neither have I. (She holds out a brown arm.) Feel my biceps. Are they strong?

Alexander (after modestly feeling them): There’s something there, all right. But that doesn’t count much in this contest. Men, you see, aren’t usually bull-dogged into what you’re asking for. (He sighs over her obtuseness.) You may not know it, but there are much nicer lines of approach.

Thalestris: I suppose you expect a woman to kneel down to you, the same as your bullheaded Bucephalus is supposed to do?

Alexander: I at least don’t want them with a knee on my chest, when they’re demanding my manly attention. It squeezes the romance out of the thing. And your woman’s instinct ought to tell you so.

Thalestris: I’m still demanding a son of you.

Alexander: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You can’t be a bully about things like that. You can’t bite children out of men. It’s—it’s against nature.

Thalestris: What must I do?

Alexander: Among other things, you might go and take a few lessons from Thais. Then you won’t have to go around grabbing men by the hair of the head and dragging them off into dark corners. (With a reminiscent chuckle.) Thais doesn’t do it that way.

Thalestris: I’m not thinking about Thais.

Alexander: Being a woman, you wouldn’t. But men seem to have given her a great deal of thought.

Thalestris: Because she is weak, weak and soft.

Alexander: Perhaps she is, but she seems to get what she wants.

Thalestris: I also get what I want.

Alexander: Oh, I didn’t think that was the case.

Thalestris: Why should a woman be soft?

Alexander: In order to be loved.

Thalestris: Loved by men who call themselves hard and have a fondness for lotos-scented flabbiness. I’m neither soft nor weak.

Alexander: Thais, who is both, has had many lovers. And I’m told that some of them were philosophers.

Thalestris: How many warriors has she bred?

Alexander: Not one. But she has made many happy.

Thalestris: Scented child of a she-camel!

Alexander: Yet she seems to have mastered the art of pleasing men. And that’s a fulltime job, to her way of thinking.

Thalestris (very much the warrior queen): Pleasing men! To cringe and wait to be petted, when they’re warm with wine and there’s nothing better on hand. No thank you. I want more than that. And I’ve the habit of getting what I want. I have never coaxed for favors. I’ve commanded them.

Alexander: Not in this case, lady. It doesn’t seem a square deal, but what can we do about it? Men are the givers. Women are the takers. We’re the hunters. You’re the hunted—that is, if you’re not out of luck.

Thalestris: To be hunted means to flee. And an Amazon never flees.

Alexander: That’s different again. You may be a hunter when you’re helling around on horseback. But when you came here tonight you came as a woman.

Thalestris: I am a woman. An unconquered one.

Alexander (sitting wearily down): Well, I’m no conqueror just now. (He glances out and up at the skies.) It’s getting late. (He studies her as she sits in silence.) And I’m sorry, of course, but this time you seem to be barking up the wrong tree.

Thalestris (also looking out at the moon): And this wonderful night, all bathed in moonlight! This star-strewn silence, that seems waiting and made for love.

Alexander: I must say you’re doing better. (As he stares at her an owl-hoot sounds across the silent camp.) Now what in the name of Jupiter is that?

Thalestris (languidly rising and emerging from the tent): It’s a night owl, searching for its mate.

Alexander: More likely for its supper.

Thalestris: No; it’s a lonely bird, seeking in the dark for love.

Alexander: So you’re both in the same boat.

Thalestris (or she gives an imitation of the distant owl-hoot): See, it answers me.

(Alexander does not see her smile of triumph as she re-enters the tent and reseats herself closer to him.)

Alexander: That ought to remind you that, in a case like this, you can’t get very far without a little wooing.

Thalestris: But I’m a woman. And I thought men did the wooing.

Alexander: Dear me; dear me; you’re just a simple country girl, after all, or you’d never run away with an idea like that.

Thalestris: Is that why you spurn me?

Alexander: I don’t exactly spurn you. You look like a very masterful woman. You’ve made a name for yourself, as an Amazon. But, frankly, you’re not exactly my idea of an armful of pulsing tenderness.

Thalestris (with a new note of humility): All I want is a son, a man-warrior to carry on my name and make me proud of him.

Alexander (hesitating and remembering himself): I’m a tired man, Thalestris. I’ve been out there under the walls of Palameta fighting hard ever since sunrise. And it takes the zip out of you. It leaves you pretty well— (He is interrupted by the entrance of Macedonius, who resolutely advances and salutes.)

Macedonius: There are three hundred warrior-women deployed between our camp and the river, three hundred women all armed and on desert stallions. I don’t like the look of it, Sire.

Alexander (resenting that untimely intrusion): Oh, stop fussing about women. Since when has a Greek been afraid of a woman?

Macedonius: These Amazons, Sire, are a treacherous lot.

Alexander: I wasn’t born yesterday, Macedonius. Go to bed. (He turns back to Thalestris as Macedonius goes out. She leans back on the couch, now bathed in the shifting moonlight.) Where was I?

Thalestris (alluringly low-voiced): You were about to tell me you were very tired. And I was about to tell you that you could rest in my arms.

Alexander (repeating his sigh of weariness): That’s not altogether my idea of resting. (He sees the papyrus roll on the table and frowningly takes it up.) And I’ve got Roxana to think about.

Thalestris (indifferently, her eyes on the moon): Who is Roxana?

Alexander: Merely my wife. She’s not so big as you are, not by a long shot. And she couldn’t throw a javelin over a chairback. But if she walked in here tonight she could make it rather interesting for both of us, my firm-muscled friend. (He sighs again.) She’s a bad-tempered woman, with a tongue as sharp as that spear of yours. And she has the habit of finding things out.

Thalestris: Has she ever given you any children?

Alexander: None that I know of.

Thalestris: Yet you are afraid of her. And afraid of me.

Alexander: I’m not afraid of you. But, as I said before, I’ve got a hard day ahead of me tomorrow and I ought to be getting to bed.

(Thalestris, who has put down her spear, slowly removes her helmet, rearranges her hair and studies Alexander.)

Thalestris: Yes, you are tired. You have shadows under your eyes and your face is drawn. That doesn’t seem right. You’re so tired out that somebody ought to take you in her arms and rock you to sleep, ever so quietly.

Alexander (fighting against that alluring coo): Thanks, but I’m doing nicely here.

Thalestris (with a sigh of disappointment): I suppose a man who’s been busy making war all his life can’t know much about making love.

Alexander: Oh, I don’t know about that. I’ve had a lady friend or two. But fighting, naturally, has come first with me.

Thalestris (with her eyes on the moon): A night like this was not made for fighting. (She turns back to Alexander.) Why are you afraid of women?

Alexander: Fear has no place in a warrior’s breast.

Thalestris: Then why can’t you trust me?

Alexander: Frankly, Thalestris, I’ve been given to understand you Amazons are a bad lot. You’ve been freebooting around all Asia Minor, sacking and looting every town that looks like good plunder.

Thalestris: And that’s really your job, I suppose?

Alexander (resenting that untimely flippancy): I carry the banners of civilization into the dark corners of the world. I over-run the barbarian only to uplift him.

Thalestris: But the taxes and tribute go back to Athens. It’s a good racket, all right. I say that as one plunderer to another. (She moves quietly over on the couch.) We seem to be two of a kind. So why can’t we talk together as two warriors should?

Alexander (with mounting uneasiness): But you didn’t come here as a warrior.

Thalestris: I came as a queen. So why can’t we confer as a king and queen should? I want to understand you. (She pats the empty space on the couch.) Rest here beside me and tell me how you came to conquer Thebes and Illycum and Thrace and Egypt and Persia.

Alexander (sitting gingerly on the couch edge): There’s Scythia and Syria and Media too, remember.

Thalestris: How did you ever do it?

Alexander (relaxing a little): Oh, it was mostly luck, I suppose. Yes, luck and hard work.

Thalestris: But twelve cities, I hear, have been named after you.

Alexander: Thirteen, to be exact.

Thalestris (her hand on his arm): And you fought your way right to the Indian Ocean. I love bravery like that.

Alexander: I got right to the Ganges.

Thalestris: And conquered all Asia. (She looks into space and sighs.) What a man! What a man!

Alexander: Oh, that wasn’t much.

Thalestris: It was never done before. (She strokes his sword arm.) This one arm, this beautiful brown arm, controls the whole wide world and every mortal that walks in it.

Alexander (sitting a little closer to her): You know, you’re a handsomer woman than I thought you were at first. And you carry yourself well.

Thalestris: I can send a javelin through a jackal at ninety paces.

Alexander: Can you, now?

Thalestris: I can put an arrow, at three hundred cubits, through a shield of horsehide.

Alexander: I don’t deny your ability to pull the long bow. But I’m no milk-and-water specimen myself.

Thalestris: You’ve just sacked Palameta. And made a good haul of it.

Alexander: And led seven different cavalry charges before we turned the trick.

Thalestris: And not a sword mark on this beautiful body.

Alexander (his eyes on her breastplate): Speaking of that sort of thing, is it true you Amazon women really mutilate yourselves?

Thalestris: Not that I know of.

Alexander: There’s a silly story going around that you do, so as to give your bow-arm more freedom when you’re fighting.

Thalestris: Certainly it’s not true.

Alexander (rather vaguely): Well, thanks for telling me.

Thalestris (her voice softer than ever): If your head were pillowed here you’d never need to be told.

Alexander: You’re learning, lady.

Thalestris (in humbler-noted simplicity): I want you to teach me.

(He hesitates before her a moment, moves closer, hesitates again, and then with a gesture of relinquishment leans rather guardedly against the leopardskin.)

Alexander: It is a comfortable shoulder.

Thalestris (her fingers stroking his hair): Don’t talk, if you’d rather not. Just rest.

Alexander: I don’t think it can be done. (He looks up, leans forward, and peers out.) That Phormio and Macedonius could walk in on us at any moment.

Thalestris: If you’re a king, why don’t you insist on a little privacy?

Alexander: Tents aren’t very private things.

Thalestris: Not with the whole front open that way.

Alexander: There’s something to that. (He gets up, hesitates, looks cautiously out right and left, then unties the back-draped tent flaps, fastens them together and shuts himself and Thalestris in. As he does so the notes of the aulos sound from the rear, more insistent and a little closer than before. They continue until Alexander angrily opens the tent flaps and calls out.) Who’s blowing that aulos out there?

(There’s no answer, but the music abruptly stops.)

I want to sleep. D’you hear me? If I catch another toot out of that thing I’ll crack somebody’s skull open. (He stands, listening, and satisfied with the silence, once more ties himself in. But a moment later Phormio hurries in to the tent front, hesitates, coughs, and finally slaps his sword against his metal shield.)

Alexander (with his head through the tent flaps): What’s the matter this time?

Phormio (in confidential undertones): It’s Thais, Sire. She wants to come and talk to you about some coconut oil you promised her.

Alexander: Tell her to go to sleep.

Phormio: She says she can’t sleep in a bed that smells like a saddle blanket. She says things are crawling on her down there, Sire. She wants to come up with you.

Alexander: Tell her the King sleeps. And the next man who comes prowling around here is going to get nailed to a tentpole. (He shuts himself in again and Phormio with a shake of the head goes reluctantly off right. Macedonius hurries on left, a moment later, sees the closed tent flaps, and starts vigorously to shake them. He is greatly agitated.)

Macedonius: Sire! Sire! I must speak with you.

Alexander (in utter exasperation, from within): And now what is it?

Macedonius: It’s your subaltern, Sire.

Alexander: What’s wrong out there? (He comes out.)

Macedonius: Everything, O King.

Alexander: Can’t you go away and leave me alone? Can’t you see I’m—I’m in conference here?

Macedonius: It’s too late for that sort of thing, Sire.

(Their eyes meet and Alexander discreetly turns back and closes the tent flaps.)

Alexander: It’s just too bad if a tired man can’t have a little peace around here. By Bacchus, I’ll— (He is cut short by the excited re-entrance of Phormio, now too reckless to be held back by royal anger or anything else.)

Phormio: To arms! To arms! Thalestris has out-witted us.

Alexander (with a stare of incredulity): What’s that?

Phormio: Those Amazons have duped us, Sire. They’ve captured the barge and made off down the river with all of the treasure of Palameta.

Alexander: But that is impossible. Thalestris is here.

Macedonius: Here pulling the wool over your eyes, Sire, while those wild women hi-jacked us out of our victory.

Alexander (stunned and incredulous): But she said I was the only man who—

Phormio: It’s just luck, Sire, you didn’t get your throat cut.

Alexander (the fighting man once more): Give me your spear. By the gods, she’ll pay for this. I’ll have no woman take advantage of the better side of my nature like that. (He indignantly flings back the tent flaps, only to find the couch deserted and the tent empty. Macedonius points to the uplifted back wall of the tent where the Amazon leader has slipped away. Alexander, stupefied, leans on his spear, blinking down at the empty couch. Then he stares off into the distance.)

Alexander: What a woman! What a woman!

Curtain

EVIDENCE

Bill (shaking his head): This is bad business, Commissioner.

Lucas (shortly): Murder usually is. (Crosses to table.) Have you got your people?

Bill: Yes, sir. Five o’ them. All women.

Lucas (indicating table): Clear that.

(As Bill clears table by lifting the four corners of the soiled tablecloth and swinging dishes en masse into the room corner, Lucas adjusts blind and places chair so window light streams over it.)

Lucas (with nod toward door right): Bring ’em in.

Bill: In a bunch? Or one at a time?

Lucas: One at a time, naturally. And have Jim keep ’em apart after I get through with ’em.

(As Bill crosses.) Wait. Who’s on the house here?

Bill: Tiernan’s coverin’ the front. Deeks and Raines are on the fire-escapes and Summers is watching the roof.

Lucas: Good. Let’s go.

Bill: Who d’you want first?

Lucas: Who saw the body first?

Bill: A Kike woman called Kassler.

Lucas: Then bring her in.

(He moves table and chair, seats himself at table. Takes out fountain pen and paper, as Bill goes out right. He writes, slowly and methodically, looks up, frowning, and resumes his writing, or pretense of writing, as the door right opens and Bill ushers in a swarthy-skinned Jewish woman of about forty, obviously very much frightened.)

Sit down.

(He indicates empty chair as she stares round-eyed about the room. She sinks into chair moaning “Oi! Oi!” as she rocks a little back and forth.)

What’s your name?

Kassler: Vat was it, please?

Lucas: I say what’s your name?

Kassler: Rachel Kassler, please. But I don’t know nodding about—

Lucas: What floor do you live on?

Kassler: On the ground floor. But—

Lucas: Mrs. Kassler, a murder was committed in this house last night. An officer of the law was shot down in cold blood, on the other side of that door. (Indicating left.) What do you know about that crime?

Kassler: Vat could I know? I vasn’t dere. I didn’t see anyding.

Lucas: You saw the dead policeman.

Kassler: Ven he vas dead, yess.

Lucas: You saw him fall?

Kassler: No; he vas dead ven I first saw him.

Lucas: When did you first see him?

Kassler: Ven he rolled down the stairs, after the pistol shots vat I heard.

Lucas: How many pistol shots?

Kassler: Two shots, like that— (She claps her hands together twice. She is gradually growing less frightened.)

Lucas: Where were you when those shots occurred?

Kassler: I vas in my kitchen, mit some gefelta fish in von hand and mit some apfel strudel in de odder hand, vonderin’ vere vas the half loaf of rye bread I had, ven I heard a voman scream.

Lucas: Oh, you heard a woman scream?

Kassler: Yess, twice, and den the cloomp of feet and den a man call oud someding and den—

Lucas: What man? I mean, could you place or know that man’s voice?

Kassler: It vass nobody I know.

Lucas: You didn’t see that man?

Kassler (with a shrug): No.

Lucas: Mrs. Kassler, do you know Apollo Brady?

Kassler (temporizing): Who, please?

Lucas (impatiently): Do you know the son of old Mrs. Brady, who lives on the third floor of this house, a young man they call Apollo Brady?

Kassler: I know Mrs. Brady.

Lucas: Do you know her son?

Kassler: Vich von?

Lucas: Oh, you know she has more than one son?

Kassler (shrugging again): I know her boys haf trouble mit der police. But vat it vas, I don’t know.

Lucas: And you don’t know why Apollo Brady was arrested two months ago?

Kassler: Vy should I? He vasn’t my son.

Lucas: And you wouldn’t know Apollo Brady if you saw him?

Kassler: No, saire.

Lucas: Well, did you see him around this building last night? Or any time yesterday?

Kassler: How can I tell, ven I don’t know him?

Lucas: Did you see any strange man about this building yesterday?

Kassler: Men come und go. But I mind my own business.

Lucas: What did you do after you heard the two pistol shots?

Kassler: I put down my gefelta fish und my apfel strudel und run out in the hall.

Lucas: And what did you see?

Kassler: I see the dead boliceman at the bottom of the stairs.

Lucas: What else?

Kassler: Nodding else, eggcept the smoke from the pistol shots und mooch blood on the floor.

Lucas: Then what did you do?

Kassler: I say “Oi! Oi!” und run out on the street und call for somebody to bring a boliceman quick.

Lucas: And then?

Kassler: Den der boliceman came.

Lucas: Did you go back in the house with him?

Kassler: No.

Lucas: Why not?

Kassler: I vas too scared. All that blood und—

Lucas: What did you do?

Kassler: I talk mit my friendts vot come around und Mrs. Einstein takes me to her house und gives me a cup of coffee und we talk some more.

Lucas: And that’s all you know about this killing?

Kassler: Yes, saire.

Lucas (frowning): All right. That will do. (He motions to the patrolman.) Take her out, Dillon.

(Bill takes Mrs. Kassler by the arm and leads her to door left, which he opens.)

Bill (calling to unseen officer): Here you are, Jim. Take her over. (He closes the door, turns, and looks at the Commissioner.)

Lucas (glancing up from his notes): How about her story, Dillon?

Bill: I think she’s lying, Commissioner.

Lucas: About what?

Bill: About not knowing Apollo Brady and about not seeing him. They all know Apollo in this dump, especially the women. That bird had a love-nest on every bough. And my dope is this, Commissioner: Once that First Avenue Valentino got clear of the Tombs he beat it back here. That’s what they do, as a rule. He’d slope back, either to see his mother or have a word or two with his sweetie.

Lucas: But who is his sweetie?

Bill (smiling broadly): Well, that’s an open question. He seems to have been quite a hand with the women. He had two or three of them, from what I gather, right under this roof.

Lucas: Well, we’ll get at that later. Bring in that washerwoman from the basement.

Bill (as he crosses to the door): She’s no washerwoman, Commissioner.

Lucas: What is she?

Bill: I’m not sure yet. But she says she operates a French laundry.

Lucas: Well, we’ll see if any of her color runs in the wash.

(He pretends to be writing as Bill enters leading Corinne Lacasse by the arm. Corinne is brisk and birdlike, well-dressed and attractive and clean-looking, somewhere about thirty. She even bows prettily at the Commissioner, who looks up but ignores the salute.)

Is your name Lacasse?

Lacasse: Oui, m’sieu. (She ad-libs in French.)

Lucas: Spill it in English, please. You speak English, don’t you?

Lacasse: I spik Anglaish a leetle, yes.

Lucas: Then let’s get down to business. You run a hand-laundry in the basement of this house, don’t you?

Lacasse: Yes, m’sieu.

Lucas: You know the people who live here?

Lacasse: Not all, m’sieu, but some of them.

Lucas: You know a police officer was murdered in this house last night?

Lacasse (shuddering): Helas! Was it not terrible, m’sieu?

Lucas: Did you hear the pistol shots?

Lacasse: No, m’sieu.

Lucas: Did you see anybody run out of the house?

Lacasse: Yes, m’sieu.

Lucas (expectantly): You did? Who was it?

Lacasse: It was Messus Kassler, m’sieu.

(Both officers sag at this.)

Lucas: What did she do?

Lacasse: She ron around in ze circle and scream and call for ze police.

Lucas: What did you do?

Lacasse: When ze officer come I go up in ze hall, wiz ze ozzers, where ze cadavre lie.

Lucas: The what?

Lacasse: Where ze body lie, m’sieu.

Lucas: Had you ever seen that dead policeman before?

Lacasse (hesitatingly and ill at ease): Yes, m’sieu.

Lucas: When?

Lacasse: He come to my blanchisserie, m’sieu, only so short a time before and ask me questions, many questions.

Lucas: About what?

Lacasse: He ask have I seen a man zat I have not seen.

Lucas: What man?

Lacasse (with pretended vagueness): By ze name, I zink, of Brady. Yes, Brady, zat was ze name!

Lucas (shouting at her): Then you know Apollo Brady?

Lacasse (cringing a little): Yes, m’sieu, a leetle. (She rattles on.) When you live in ze same house, you know ze people you see every day. Naturally, m’sieu. And here I have many customers who come on my shop and—

Lucas (pounding the table): I want the truth. You knew Apollo Brady, didn’t you?

Lacasse: As you will, m’sieu.

Lucas: Did you ever give him money?

Lacasse (defensively): Why should I, m’sieu?

Lucas: Because Apollo got money out of all his lady friends. And he got it out of you, too, didn’t he?

Lacasse (trying to meet the other’s glare and failing): It was a small loan, m’sieu. He was to repay me when ze better luck come to him.

Lucas: But you fell for him, and when he was in trouble you wanted to help him out.

Lacasse: It is good, m’sieu, to help others, when ze heart is kind.

Lucas: That’s a truth your friend Apollo seems to have traded on. You all wanted to help him. And when he came back here after escaping from the Tombs yesterday afternoon you wanted to help him again, didn’t you?

Lacasse: I don’t understand, m’sieu.

Lucas: You mean you don’t want to understand. But I do. You know as well as I do that Apollo Brady was in this house last night.

Lacasse (fencing): Please, m’sieu, if you will not talk so loud.

Lucas: I’ll talk any way I see fit. It’s the truth that’s hurting you, lady, and not the loud tone. You talked to Apollo Brady yesterday, didn’t you?

Lacasse (bravely): Zat is not ze truth.

Lucas: You’ll swear to that?

Lacasse: Certainement.

Lucas (disgustedly): Do you think that lying like this is going to help you any?

Lacasse: You do not permit me to think.

Lucas: Well, you’ll be stopped doing a lot of other things before long. When did you see Apollo Brady last?

Lacasse (guardedly): It was two months ago, maybe.

Lucas: And you didn’t see him last night?

Lacasse: No.

Lucas: And I’m a liar, I s’pose, when I say he was seen going into your laundry yesterday afternoon?

Lacasse (shrugging): I would say, m’sieu, that you were mistaken. Many people came and went in my place yesterday afternoon. But not Apollo Brady.

(Lucas sits silent. The woman moves restlessly.)

Is zat all, m’sieu?

Lucas: No, not by a long shot. You’re not telling me the truth, lady, and you know it as well as I do. What you’re in need of is a little solitude to think things over.

Lacasse: I am not afraid of my thoughts, m’sieu.

Lucas: Not, but you’re afraid of your acts. And when the time comes you’ll have considerable explaining to do.

Lacasse: What must I explain, m’sieu?

Lucas (bullyingly): Why you harbored an escaped prisoner and a little later on helped a murderer get away from this house. And why you’re lying about it, when we’ve got the goods on you.

Lacasse (with quiet dignity): I am not afraid, m’sieu.

Lucas: You’ll change your tune, before we’re through with you. (Curtly, to his junior officer.) Take her out. And bring in that wop girl.

(He sits, frowning, conscious of defeat, as Bill hands the witness out through the door and turns back to his superior.)

Bill: You know, Commissioner, I think we’ve got that French dame wrong. A laundry shop don’t make good cover. And Apollo’s too cagey a bird to duck back to a dump with an open front like that. He’d slope in somewhere where he couldn’t be seen.

Lucas: Perhaps he would. But that rib’s got something up her sleeve she isn’t shaking out. We’ll back-trail on her before we get through with this. Bring in that Palermo woman.

Bill (as he crosses to door): Yes, sir.

(The Commissioner frowningly makes a note or two as the other goes out, to re-enter a moment later with the voluble and gesticulating Lauretta Palermo, a fiery and not unattractive Italian girl of about twenty-four.)

Laura (as she fights Bill back): Keepa da hands off me. Who giva da right to taka me w’ere I no wanta go? And w’en I tella my man what ’appen today, w’en I tella my Tony, he maka de fur fly. He ’ave something to say, maybe, to you beega bully whata you no forget. And don’t pulla my arm, you beega steef, and don’t t’ink I’m afraida you or afraida—

Bill (wearily): Sit down, Mount Vesuvius, sit down and shut up.

Laura: I no wanta seet down.

Lucas (quietly, studying her): What do you want to do?

Laura: I wanta be letta alone.

Lucas: Then do what you’re told and you’ll be let alone.

Laura (advancing on him): But already for two hours you kipa me shut up. And w’en I tella the cop I wanta go home to my Tony he only maka da laugh and say not singa so loud.

Lucas (soothingly): Well, s’posing we follow that cop’s advice. Let’s not sing so loud and see if we can’t get somewhere. Sit down.

Laura: I no wanta sit down.

Lucas (thundering at her): Sit down.

Laura (their glances locked): I no wanta— (She breaks off, cowed, and finally seats herself, still sullen and rebellious.)

Lucas: Law is law, Lauretta, and we have to do what it tells us to do. And just now it wants you to answer a few questions.

Laura: Si, signore.

Lucas: Where was your husband last night, your man Tony?

Laura: My man worka at the Rosa Fusarini night club where he cooka da lobster and l’arroste and la minestra and la costoletta and maka l’insalata and feexa da sweetbreads and the chicken-a-la-king for two-t’ree hundred ’ungry people. My Tony worka there last night same as he worka there every night.

Lucas: What time did he leave home?

Laura: He go away at seex o’clock. He go away every night at seex o’clock.

Lucas (pointedly): And who came to see you last night after he left?

Laura (in a torrent): Rosario Chiappetta and Beatrici Delorenzo and Guiseppina Maria Delossada and Rosabella Cecelia Ferrarri and her leetle bambino Laurindo Benedicta and Voletta and Enrichetta Taranella and Florentina Buona Angelo and—

Lucas: Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Let’s leave out the women and babies. What I want to know is, who was the man that came to see you last night?

Laura (on her feet, indignant): Da man? To see me? No man poka da nose in my place when my Tony ees away. Nobody see me spika wit’ a man. Nor walk out wit’ a man. Nor maka da eye at da man. I’m a gooda wife. And I no cheata da game. I’m a gooda woman. And I no breaka da law.

Lucas (coolly): I don’t know about that, Lauretta. My officer here tells me he found a still going full blast in your back room.

Laura (subsiding like a punctured tire): We maka leetle hootch, maybe, for mediceene w’en we feel seeck. We have leetle wine, maybe, to eat wit’ da macaroni. But we no breaka da law.

Lucas: Well, we won’t go into that just now. But there was a policeman shot in this house last night. And that policeman was shot with a revolver that belonged to your husband.

Laura: My Tony? No, no! My Tony no hava da gun.

Lucas: Oh, yes he did. And he had a license for one. What’s more, he’s identified the gun as his.

Laura: Where is my Tony?

Lucas: He’s over at Headquarters, waiting to see how much of the truth you’re going to tell.

Laura: I wanta my Tony.

Lucas: Well, you won’t get him for a while. He’s—

Laura (on her feet again): I wanta my Tony.

Lucas: Sit down. And the sooner you come across the sooner you get out of here. You know there was a man killed in this house last night?

Laura (crossing herself): Si, signore.

Lucas: That means yes?

Laura (nodding her head): Yes, signore.

Lucas: Who killed him?

Laura: Me? How should I know?

Lucas: He was killed with your husband’s revolver.

Laura: But not my Tony. My Tony was too busy las’ night keela da crab and keela da lobster for Rosa Fusarini. Everybody knowa dat my Tony—

Lucas: Of course they do, Lauretta. But they don’t know how that man, whoever he was, got possession of your husband’s revolver. And that revolver was left at home, in your keeping.

Laura: I no keepa da gun. I no toucha da gun.

Lucas: But sometime, between six o’clock and nine o’clock last night it was taken from your flat. Who took it?

Laura (stubbornly): Not my Tony.

Lucas: We all know it wasn’t your Tony. (With challenging abruptness) Do you know Apollo Brady?

Laura (after a silence): No, signore.

Lucas: What? You don’t know young Brady?

Laura (more composed): No, signore.

Lucas: But you know his mother, Mrs. Brady?

Laura (hesitating): No, signore.

Lucas: Wait a minute, lady; wait a minute. Think that over again. Are you trying to tell me you’ve lived under this roof with a woman for seven years and never known her?

Laura (stubbornly): I ’ave never known Messus Brady.

Lucas (accusingly): Then why does she know you so well?

Laura (fencing for time): Why does she knowa me so well?

Lucas (pointedly): That’s what I said. Why did Mrs. Brady tell us last night you were a—a bad woman?

Laura (blazing up again): Me a bada woman? Me bad? W’en I tell my Tony you say I’m a bada woman he’ll keel—

Lucas: Leave your Tony out of this. He doesn’t know yet how you’ve been running after young Brady.

Laura: Who says I ronne after Apollo Brady?

Lucas: His own mother does. And she ought to know.

Laura (fiercely): Thata woman ees a weeked ol’ liar. Alla da time she tella da lie and maka da troub’ for me. Alla da time she hata me.

Lucas: And you know why, as well as I do. You ran after her boy.

Laura: No, no, no! Thata boy, alla da time, he ronne after me. Many time, w’en he come, I locka da door. I say I no see heem. I lova my Tony. I wanta be a good woman.

Lucas: Then why didn’t you lock the door on him last night?

Laura: Las’ night?

Lucas (with a fist-pound on the table): Last night you were seen talking with young Brady.

Laura (with angry promptness): Because I see heem on da stairs, after I leava da portalettere and go up again to piano secondo. I no wanta stop. I no tella heem to spik to me. I no looka for troub’.

Lucas (the two men having exchanged glances): But he did, didn’t he?

Laura (rattling on in angry rebuttal): He stoppa on da stairs and say, “ ’Ello, Lauretta,” and I’say, “ ’Ello, Apollo,” and ’e say, “You glada see me back?” and I say, “Ees eet you, Apollo?” and ’e say, “Sure,” and I say, “You outa da troub’?” and ’e laugh and say, “Sure, my littla troub’ all clear’ up an’ da judge tella me to tak a walk,” and I say, “Were you go now?” and he lean against da door and—

Lucas: The door? What door?

Laura: While we talk he walka beside me until he come to da door where I leev.

Lucas: And you unlocked the door and opened it?

Laura (fidgeting): Si, signore.

Lucas: And he went inside?

Laura: Si, signore. (She hangs her head, guiltily.)

Lucas: How long was he inside?

Laura: Two, t’ree minutes.

Lucas: Now, wasn’t it a little longer than that?

Laura: Maybe five minutes, or seex. But not long, signore.

Lucas (sotto-voce to Bill): He had a way with him, that bird! (To Lauretta) Did he ask for a gun?

Laura: Oh, no! no!

Lucas (dryly): You weren’t thinking of guns just then?

Laura: He tella me he maybe taka da boat to La Argentina as soon as ’e pay up a leetle debt that he owe.

Lucas: And then he left you?

Laura: Si, signore.

Lucas: Where did he go when he went out?

Laura: I no see eef he go up or down.

Lucas: You were feeling pretty bad, you mean. You were crying a little, weren’t you?

Laura (hanging her head): Si, signore.

Lucas: When he was in there with you, could he have got his hands on the revolver?

Laura (thinking hard, and her face suddenly hardening): No.

Lucas: Are you sure?

Laura (passionately): No! No! (Her deception, however, is obvious.)

Lucas: You’re pretty fond of this Irish Lothario, aren’t you?

Laura (her face working): I am a gooda woman. And I lova my Tony.

Lucas: Of course you do! (His smile is ironic. He sits back with a sigh, frowning.) That’s all just now. (To Bill.) We’ll want this woman later on. Tell Jim to see there’s no talk between these dames. And the next one I want to see is our friend Sadie Cole.

(Bill leads Lauretta, with all her earlier fire lost, out the door, and re-enters, smiling triumphantly.)

Bill: We seem to be getting somewhere, Commissioner.

Lucas: But we’ve still a considerable way to go.

Bill: I’d a hunch it was young Brady, all along. But where’d he get away to? And who was the dame that cut the trail open for him?

Lucas: We’ll have our answer to that inside of ten minutes. Did you give Sadie a good look at the body?

Bill: Yes, sir.

Lucas: How’d she take it?

Bill: Cool as a cucumber. She was pretty white. But there wasn’t a peep out of her.

Lucas (meditatively): She may have done that shooting.

Bill: What? Sadie!

Lucas: Why not? There’s been bad blood between her and the Palermos, she sure fell for Apollo, and if she was shooting the way clear for her sweetie it was a good triple-play to swipe the wop’s gun for the job. Oh, Sadie’s worth watching.

Bill (scratching his head): I think you’re wrong, Chief.

Lucas (with back-to-business air): Well, let’s find out. Bring her in.

(Bill steps out the right door and re-enters with Sadie Cole. She is an East-Side girl of about twenty-three, cool and insolently diffident, yet all the while alert-eyed and guarded. The Commissioner pretends to be busy with his notes as she stands before her waiting chair, powdering her nose and applying lip-stick. Lucas looks up.)

Oh, hello, Sadie. Sit down. (He writes a word or two.) I thought you were still working up at that Fusarini Night Club.

Sadie (indifferently): They laid me off.

Lucas (banteringly): Why’d they ever drop a good-looker like you?

Sadie: Because I said nothin’ doin’ on the lush-dip game.

Lucas: The lush-dip game?

Sadie: Yeah. Pearl-divin’ in Jack-Rose Bay. Gettin’ the high-rollers well stewed and then relievin’ them of their wad. It ain’t honest.

Lucas: And you always insisted on being honest?

Sadie: Sure.

Lucas: But weren’t you having a little trouble with the Palermos?

Sadie: Me? Over what?

Lucas: Primarily, over Apollo Brady.

Sadie (hardening): You got me wrong, Chief.

Lucas: But weren’t you a little thick with Tony Palermo, just to even up with the Italian lady for coming between you and your Apollo?

Sadie: That spaghetti-slinger’s wife never disturbed no sleep o’ mine.

Lucas: Then how about Tony?

Sadie: Tony’s all right. He’s a square shooter.

Lucas (sharply): Are you a square shooter?

(Their glances lock.)

Sadie (indignantly): Say, what is this, anyway? A pinch? If I’m a prisoner I’m entitled to the advice of counsel, ain’t I?

Lucas (soothingly): No, Sadie, this is no pinch. This is just a quiet little talk between friends. We’re in a jam, here, and you’re about the only person who can help us out of it.

Sadie (powdering her nose): Well, let’s go.

Lucas: That’s the spirit, Sadie. You’re an honest girl, aren’t you?

Sadie: Sure.

Lucas: And that’s really why you had that little trouble with the District Attorney’s office last winter, just trying to be honest?

Sadie (with narrowed eyes): That guy had me dead wrong. Those dirty bums framed me and someday I’ll spill the reason why.

Lucas: But the necklace was found on your friend Apollo Brady. Tell me, just how do you account for that?

Sadie (coughing, to gain time): Apollo Brady’s no friend of mine.

Lucas: What’s soured you on Apollo?

Sadie: Soured ain’t the word. I’m indifferent.

Lucas (sitting back): What’s the use, Sadie? We all know you and Apollo were running together last winter.

Sadie (shifting her chair out of the strong light): That was last winter.

Lucas (with abrupt force): Then how about last night?

Sadie: What about last night?

Lucas: Why was Apollo Brady in your flat last night?

Sadie: Who says he was in my flat last night?

Lucas (bending over his notes): Three different witnesses.

Sadie: They’re dreamin’. And the Prince o’ Wales wasn’t in my flat last night, either. (She apparently searches her bag for a cigarette, but fails to find one.)

Lucas: You’re not trying to tell me you weren’t talking to Apollo Brady here yesterday?

Sadie: I’m tellin’ you I haven’t seen hide nor hair of Apollo Brady for over two months.

Lucas (wearily): Oh, what’s the use, Sadie? We’re simply fooling away a lot of time here.

Sadie: Well, I’m willin’ to call it a day. Anything else you want ’o ask me?

Lucas (loud and stern): Yes, I want to know who killed Patrolman Pierson outside your door last night. Either you or Apollo Brady fired those shots. And I want to know who.

Sadie (laughing coolly): The man’s still ravin’. Why, Commissioner, I ain’t a cop-killer. And I ain’t wet-nursin’ any jail-breaker out shootin’ up the town. I’ve been watchin’ my step since that little trouble last winter and goin’ straight.

Lucas: Going straight? You’ll be going straight to the Grand Jury if you can’t come across with a better story than that. Why, girl, you’re in bad here, and you won’t even let me help you.

Sadie: A fat lot you’d help me.

Lucas: What I have to say about this, Sadie, may prove pretty important.

Sadie: Not to me! You can’t talk me into this cop-killin’, and you may as well know it. I can account for every hour last night.

Lucas: I s’pose that means you’ve cooked up a first-class alibi?

Sadie: I’ve got my alibi—and it didn’t come out of any Dutch oven.

Lucas: Well, you’ll need it. For you know what’s going to happen, don’t you?

Sadie (flippantly): Yeah. Christmas is comin’!

Lucas (intently): The electric chair is coming. And it’s coming for either you or Apollo Brady.

Sadie: It won’t be me!

Lucas (groping for a new opening): Remember, we’ve got young Brady. He’s down at Headquarters now, telling teacher how it all happened. And his story may not let you off so easy as this song of your own you’re singing.

Sadie (sitting thoughtful a moment): What story can he tell?

Lucas: The story that’ll tie you up while it clears him.

Sadie (with a brittle laugh): Apollo ain’t built that way.

Lucas: You mean he’d lie to save your neck?

Sadie: He’ll never need to.

(Lucas studies her, as though compelled to believe her against his will. But he refuses to give up.)

Lucas: But you’d lie to save your lover’s life, wouldn’t you?

Sadie (languidly): There ain’t no such animal.

Lucas (savagely): There won’t be, two months from now. He’ll be buried in quicklime, up at Sing Sing.

Sadie (with pocket mirror, applying lip-stick): You’ve got it all worked out, ain’t you, Commissioner?

Lucas: Yes. I’ve just about got it worked out, lady. And it doesn’t look any too good for you, either.

Sadie (rising and stretching): Then I’ll be seein’ more of you.

Lucas (passionately): You sure will.

Sadie (to Bill as he crosses to her): Got a cigarette about you, buddy?

Bill (easily): I don’t smoke ’em, Sadie.

Sadie (airily, as she passes the table): Will that be all?

Lucas (tartly, as he pretends to write): For the present, yes. (He looks up as Bill leads her out, glowering after her. His gesture, as his great hand smites the table, is one of frustration. Bill, returning, breaks in on his meditation.)

Bill: She’s a ten-minute egg all right.

Lucas (relaxing and in a more fraternal tone): She didn’t help us much, did she?

Bill: My feeling is, Commissioner, that she couldn’t.

Lucas: Why do you say that?

Bill: Well, as I dope it out, she knows something, but she’s not goin’ to spill it. On the other hand, she didn’t do the shootin’.

Lucas: But she knows who did?

Bill (nods): That’s my hunch.

Lucas: Well, in this case we’ve got to have more than hunches. (He frowns over his notes.) I had one myself, and it went wrong. (He looks at his watch.) Let’s have the old lady now.

Bill: Yes, sir. (He goes out and returns with Mrs. Brady, the old Irish mother of Apollo. She is stooped and gray-haired, but still sharp of eye and sharp of tongue. She wears a faded shawl over her sagging shoulders, which she picks at, nervously, from time to time.)

Lucas (with beguiling kindliness): Sit, down, Mrs. Brady. I’m sorry I’ve had to bring you in here.

Mrs. Brady (eying him with Celtic hate): And it’s sorry I am to be here.

Lucas: Well, we’ll make it as easy for you as we can, Mrs. Brady. It’s no doings of yours that has brought this about.

Mrs. Brady: It would’ve been aisier if I’d had a bite av breakfast.

Lucas: That’s too bad. No breakfast, and no sleep at all last night.

Mrs. Brady (angrily): An’ who’s sayin’ I had no sleep at all last night?

Lucas: Well, we couldn’t expect you to sleep much, Mrs. Brady, with an officer of the law murdered practically on your doorstep.

Mrs. Brady (her note an embittered one): Faith, and that wouldn’t be robbin’ me of me rest.

Lucas (delusively bland): Oh, yes; I remember. You’re a bit of a cop-hater, aren’t you, Mrs. Brady?

Mrs. Brady: I’ve no love for thim as hate me and mine.

Lucas: Does that mean the servants of law and justice have been unfair to you, Mrs. Brady?

Mrs. Brady: They have.

Lucas: In what way?

Mrs. Brady: First there was me boy Pat, a lad who was as kind wid childer and animals as aver ye’d see. And good to his ould mother. And as stiddy a boy as there was in the Ward.

Lucas: What did Pat do?

Mrs. Brady: Nothin’! Nothin’ at all. But whin they raided Kelly’s pool room after a gang killin’ your servants av law and order shlipped a pistol into me boy’s pocket and swore he was in on thim ructions.

Lucas: He had a fair trial, didn’t he?

Mrs. Brady: Fair? Wid twinty lyin’ cops swearin’ their souls away to sind the lad up the River? Faith, it was anything but fair.

Lucas: And your other son?

Mrs. Brady: Thin there was me boy Chick. Chick was as stiddy a lad, wanst, as iver brought home his pay av a Saturday night. There was no bad in that boy. But he was led astray by men stronger thin himself. Up-standin’ he was, and clean av body and tongue. And such a head av curls he had! (Her voice begins to break.) But him too the cops hounded for a bit av a mistake he made across the Hudson. And him awearin’ the best years av his life away in Trenton jail. ’Tis cruel—cruel. (She breaks down and sobs in her shawl.)

Lucas: And how about Apollo?

Mrs. Brady (with unexpected spirit): I’ve no son av mine bearin’ the name av Apollo. Apollo! ’Tis a dago word they hitched onto him, and I hate it. ’Tis me son Seamus ye mean, doubtless?

Lucas: All right, Mrs. Brady. We’ll call him Seamus. The women I’ve just been talking to here tell me he dropped in on you all yesterday.

Mrs. Brady (taken aback, but recovering herself): Faith, and I knew nothing av that!

Lucas: You’re trying to tell me you didn’t see your son yesterday?

Mrs. Brady: I did not.

Lucas: You’ll swear to that?

Mrs. Brady: Why shouldn’t I swear to it, bein’ God’s own truth?

Lucas: And in the last twenty-four hours you haven’t seen nor spoken with your son in this house?

Mrs. Brady: I have not.

Lucas: You’ll swear to that?

Mrs. Brady: I’ll swear to that on a stack av Bibles as high as your head.

Lucas (after studying her): Mrs. Brady, you’re not helping us much.

Mrs. Brady: I’m nayther givin’ nor askin’ help av thim I hate.

Lucas: Well, let’s go at this from another angle. Whatever happened, we at least know that Apollo got away.

Mrs. Brady (tartly): You mean Seamus.

Lucas: Well, Seamus then. As we all know, he’s shown us a clean pair of heels.

Mrs. Brady: Thank God and all His blessed Saints for that.

Lucas: And he can stay away, for all I care, once we clear up this killing.

Mrs. Brady: My Seamus had nothin’ at all to do wid that killin’.

Lucas: I know it, Mrs. Brady. But you’ve a neighbor or two trying to make me believe something different.

Mrs. Brady: Little they know about it, the lyin’ huzzies.

Lucas: Oh, then you know they’re wrong when they swear it was Seamus Brady killed that police officer?

Mrs. Brady (rising slowly from her chair): I do.

Lucas: And it wasn’t Lauretta Palermo put a pistol in his hand and hid him away in her bedroom?

Mrs. Brady: It was not. And niver a hand av his was laid on a pistol.

Lucas: Then who was it?

Mrs. Brady (defiant and reckless): ’Twas mesilf. ’Twas mesilf led the lad to me room, since the truth must be told. ’Twas mesilf made him take off his coat and helped him put on me widow’s dress and bonnet and me best shawl, knowin’ as I did the cops would be after him.

Lucas (sitting up): Oh, he got away dressed as a woman? And you helped him get away?

Mrs. Brady: Faith and I did. (With higher-pitched abandon.) And why shouldn’t I help him get away? Me his own mother and him rottin’ in prison wid no hope av a fair trial when it came! Him they harried and hounded and lied aginst and beat over the body wid straps av rubber! Him as I was hopin’ might get off to some far country and be startin’ life over again! Him as I’d nursed at me breast and carried in these arms av mine and crooned over whin he lay sick in his cradle! Him who as a wee lad would come creepin’ to me wid his hurts, thinkin’ I had the power to take away ivry pain that crept into his little white body! Me poor hunted boy, comin’ pantin’ back to me like a pelted hound out av an alley end! Me Seamus! Me youngest and last! And him to be hated and hunted and beaten and starved and shut away from the sun for the rest av his life! Ye niver gave him a chanst! Ye niver gave him a chanst!

(Lucas watches her, impassively, as she breaks down and weeps. Then he pretends to write a line or two, while she grows quieter.)

Lucas (with assumed sympathy): Your boy will get his chance, Mrs. Brady, once we’ve straightened out this killing business. What I want to know is how he got past the officer posted in the hallway.

Mrs. Brady (craftily): He went as an ould woman, I’ve been tellin’ ye. And an ould woman he looked, in the evenin’ light, him goin’ stoop-shouldered to the door wid me shawl over his head. Faith, it was out loud he laughed, in spite av me sobbin’ there at his side, when he stood peerin’ at himself in the glass. “ ’Tis a fine cop-fighter I am now,” says he, wid me bonnet down over his ears. “But all I want,” says he, “is to get away peaceful and quiet. ’Tis me wan chanst,” says he, as I helt him a moment aginst me ould breast. And still again he laughed, careless-like, as I swung open the door for him.

Lucas: And what did you see there?

Mrs. Brady (impassioned and once more on her feet): There I saw wan av your bloodhounds. There I saw wan of your lyin’ peelers wid a pistol in his hand and hate in his eye, standin’ between me Seamus and his chanst.

Lucas (thunderingly): And your Seamus shot the cop.

Mrs. Brady (with answering force): Me Seamus! Little ye know the truth. It was me—’twas me shot that fenian in blue. ’Twas me wid me own ould hand shot him down. ’Twas me reached back for the pistol and—

Lucas: What pistol?

Mrs. Brady: The pistol I’d taken from Seamus’s pocket.

Lucas: When?

Mrs. Brady: Before I burnt his coat up to a cinder in me kitchen range, so there’d be no trace av him about. And that pistol I took in me hand. And widout a word I pushed me lad to wan side and put a bullet through the heart av your bloodhound. And a second wan to make sure!

(Lucas drops back in his chair, in the face of the old woman’s venomous exultation.)

I kilt him! I kilt him!

Lucas (bewildered): So it was you! (He wheels suddenly about.) Wait! Your story, woman, doesn’t hang together. The revolver that policeman was shot with has already been identified. It didn’t belong to you or your Apollo. It belonged to a dago on the lower floor, a man named Palermo.

Mrs. Brady: Sure it was Tony’s pistol, ye fool.

Lucas: Then how did your Seamus get hold of it?

Mrs. Brady: He got hold av it when that shameless slut av Tony’s loored the poor lad in through her door, on his way up for a word wid his ould mother. ’Twas whin she went to pull up the blinds again me boy helped himself to the pistol. And God and His Saints be thanked that he did. For wid that pistol I cleared a path for his feet and let him go free. I shot down the bloodhound that stood snarlin’ before him. Two bullets I put through his body, knowin’ well it was his life or my laddy’s.

Lucas: You know what this means? You understand where a confession like this will send you?

Mrs. Brady (exultantly): ’Tis not where I go that can worrit me now. Ye can have me ould body, ye bloodhounds. But me boy must go free! Me boy must go free! (Her hysterical sobs, as she sinks back in a chair, are interrupted by a knock on the door. Bill answers the knock, confers with somebody outside the door, and turns back to the Commissioner.)

Bill (with quiet finality): It’s all right, Chief.

Lucas: What’s all right?

Bill (staring at the huddled figure under the shawl): It’s all wrong, I mean. They’ve just got Apollo Brady.

Lucas: Where?

Bill: Making a getaway from Ballard’s barroom. They brought him down with a bullet through the lungs. He did the shooting.

Lucas: Who did what shooting?

Bill (with a head-nod toward Mrs. Brady as she staggers to her feet): This old woman’s been foolin’ us, Chief. She’s been lyin’ her soul away. She—

Mrs. Brady (shrilly): Where’s me boy? Where’s me boy?

Bill: He’s where we won’t be botherin’ him, Mrs. Brady.

Lucas: What do you mean by that?

Bill: I mean it was Apollo Brady who killed Pierson, Commissioner. He came through with a signed confession before he passed out, over at Bellevue.

Mrs. Brady (with dulled eyes): You don’t mean me Seamus is dead? You can’t be tellin’ his ould mother he’s gone from her . . . foriver? (She looks at the two silent men.) They’ve kilt him! They’ve kilt him!

Curtain

THE ANGLE OF ADVENTURE

Bellboy (as he pockets his handsome tip): You’ll want ice water, sir?

Laurence (his eye on the motionless Priscilla): Er—what’s that?

Bellboy (showing thermos bottle): Ice water?

Laurence: Oh, ice water? Yes, of course. And a bowl of cracked ice. Lots of ice.

Bellboy: Yes, sir.

(As he goes out with the thermos bottle, closing the door after him, Laurence solemnly takes off his top coat and wipes his brow. Then, taking up the key, he grimly crosses to the door and locks it. As he stands with his back to the door, staring at the silent Priscilla, he still again mops his brow.)

Laurence: Thank the Lord that’s over. (He lifts the bigger of the two bags to the bed.) And now we may as well get settled.

Priscilla (staring into space): Laurence, did you notice that boy?

Laurence: What about him?

Priscilla: His eyes!

Laurence: What about his eyes?

Priscilla (with even greater conviction): He knows.

Laurence: Knows what, Priscilla?

Priscilla: That we’re not man and wife.

Laurence (squaring his shoulders and forcing a laugh): My strength it is the strength of ten, because my heart is pure. (He turns back to his bags.) And a child of that age couldn’t even understand the facts of life.

Priscilla (grimly): But I could see by his face that he knows.

Laurence (crossing to her): My dear Priscilla, you must steel yourself. You must be brave.

Priscilla: I’ll do my best. (She inspects herself in the dresser mirror.) I suppose I look like a scared rabbit.

Laurence (stoutly): You don’t. You look as cool as a cucumber. And you wear those flowers bravely, as though you didn’t give a whoop what happened.

Priscilla: But I do, Larry.

Laurence (stubbornly): There’s courage even in the way you wear that little tilted hat of yours.

Priscilla (as she gives it a further tilt): At the angle of adventure.

Laurence (taking things from his bag): The one thing to remember is that this is all shadow-boxing.

Priscilla: But we’re going into the ring with the Seventh Commandment.

Laurence: Priscilla, you’re not going to crack up on me now, are you? After being perfect in every move? Why, there wasn’t a quaver in your voice when you told that desk clerk you wanted the quietest room in the hotel. And at that very moment my own hand was shaking so I could hardly sign the register.

Priscilla: I’d hate to tell you what I felt like.

Laurence: Then you certainly didn’t show it. There was something almost regal in your walk when you crossed to the elevator. My own knees were so wobbly I had to lean against the cage wall as we came up.

Priscilla: That’s because women are better play-actors than men. (Her eyes coast the room and rest on the bed.) But this makes me feel rather—rather funny.

Laurence: Of course it does. And that’s why you’re such a brick about it all.

Priscilla: I don’t intend to fail you, Larry.

Laurence (with a nod of approval): God, you’re brave.

Priscilla (as she slowly takes off her hat and coat): Only on the surface, my dear. I suppose one gets used to it, in time. But it’s all rather new to me, you see.

Laurence: Of course it is.

Priscilla: Could anyone else have seen us?

Laurence: Seen us, when?

Priscilla: When we came to this hotel.

Laurence: My two detectives were trailing us, of course. They must have seen us. They were to watch me sign that register and bring you up to this room.

Priscilla: It must be horrible to be shadowed that way.

Laurence: I’ve had it for three weeks now. I’m beginning to feel a trifle lonesome when I can’t spot ’em somewhere in the offing.

Priscilla (with a shudder): And they have to break into this room?

Laurence (disturbed by her pallor): Let’s not talk about that now. (He takes a bottle of Napoleon brandy out of his bag.) What we both need is a bracer.

Priscilla: Before you take any of that, Larry, I want you to tell me something, honest-Injun and man-to-man.

Laurence (arrested by her solemnity): What is it?

Priscilla (looking into his eyes, her hand on his arm): Larry, do you—

(A knock on the door interrupts that question. Laurence unlocks the door and admits Bellboy, with thermos and cracked ice.)

Bellboy: Ice water, sir. And a bowl of cracked ice.

Laurence: Good. (He watches the boy place the thermos and bowl on the table. Priscilla all the while studies a pallid print of “Alone at Last” on the room wall.)

Bellboy: Anything else, sir?

Laurence (curtly, after studying his face): Not at the moment.

Bellboy: Very good, sir.

(Laurence, after Bellboy goes out, crosses to the door and once more locks it. He stands looking at the motionless Priscilla.)

Priscilla: He knows, doesn’t he?

Laurence (as he pours two drinks): If he doesn’t now he certainly will by midnight. (He hands her a glass.) This is what you need to steady those nerves. (He empties his own glass, plainly in quest of Dutch courage. But as Priscilla sips at her drink she circles the room, looks in, with a grimace, through the bathroom door, grimly remarks: “Bathroom and everything!” then inspects the bed and dresser, and draws up beside her bag.)

Priscilla: And now what?

Laurence: I suppose we may as well set the stage. (He consults his watch.) Midnight, you see, is our zero hour.

Priscilla (with a mock salute): All right, Captain.

Laurence: It’s not much fun, naturally. But it can’t last long.

Priscilla: How long?

Laurence: Until the detectives break in, at twelve.

Priscilla: Break in?

Laurence: Well, not exactly. But at ten minutes to twelve I’m to go to that telephone and order up Martinis and turkey sandwiches.

Priscilla: Martinis? They won’t ride so well on that Napoleon brandy, will they?

Laurence: But, don’t you see, we don’t have to drink ’em. They’ll only be part of the show.

Priscilla: Like me.

Laurence (intent on his explanation): So at exactly midnight, when I open the door for those cocktails and sandwiches, my two men are to brush in past the bellboy, take a look at you, and announce that you’re not my wife.

Priscilla: To whom?

Laurence: To each other. That’s for evidence.

Priscilla: Then what happens?

Laurence: Nothing at all. They simply go out again.

Priscilla: What will you be doing?

Laurence: I can be doing anything. Or, rather, nothing.

Priscilla: What must I be doing?

Laurence (with an uneasy glance toward the bed): I’m terribly sorry, but for a minute or two I’m afraid you’ll have to be in that.

Priscilla: In what?

Laurence: In that bed.

Priscilla: With my clothes on?

Laurence (with difficulty): It’s rotten, I know. But you’ll have to take some of them off. The top part—or something.

Priscilla: I didn’t know it went that far.

Laurence: It has to, my dear. It’s the law, you see. The statute says the correspondent in the case must be—must be partially disrobed.

Priscilla: But that makes it rather beastly.

Laurence: I know it does, on the surface. It’s as absurd as all the rest of the putrid farce. But we don’t seem to have much choice in the matter.

Priscilla: But after those men break in here and go away again—what happens to us?

Laurence: That’s the end. Everything’s over. All we do is gather up our things and walk out.

Priscilla: But won’t this hotel hate us for what we’ve done? Soiling their fair name and making a scandal on their nice clean seventeenth floor?

Laurence: There won’t be any scene, Priscilla: We’ve rented this room and it’s our home until we walk out of it.

Priscilla: Our home!

Laurence: So let’s shut our eyes to everything but that fact and settle down and be comfortable. Just remember that we’re putting on an act, playing a part, to satisfy the demands of the Supreme Court of New York, and that inside an hour we can pack up and walk out, and nobody in all this wide world will ever know who you are or what your name is.

Priscilla: But even in a case like this, shouldn’t some thought be given to appearances?

Laurence: Appearances?

Priscilla: It won’t look so nice if we trail out of here at two o’clock in the morning.

Laurence: I hadn’t thought of that.

Priscilla: We could, of course, pretend that we’d quarreled.

Laurence: But we’ve never quarreled in our life.

Priscilla: Then how about the fire escape? Perhaps we could slip down that way.

Laurence: Please, Priscilla, be serious.

Priscilla: I’m only trying to make you forget your troubles, old top. Just whistling past the graveyard.

Laurence (showing himself to be literal-minded): Graveyard. What graveyard?

Priscilla (with her indulgent laugh): The graveyard of my good name, Sir Galahad.

Laurence: I’d like to see anyone attack your good name. For whether you go out through that door at one o’clock tonight, or eight o’clock in the morning, you’ll go as spotless as you came in.

Priscilla: Not in the eyes of the law.

Laurence (once more consulting his watch): That’s right. We’ve got to get ready for those idiots. (He hesitates and pours himself a drink. His hand, as he tosses it off, is a trifle unsteady. Then he hesitatingly regards his roommate.)

Priscilla: What is it?

Laurence: You—you won’t mind taking off your blouse or something?

Priscilla (unexpectedly calm): I’m in your hands, darling.

Laurence (severely): You mustn’t call me darling.

Priscilla: I rather thought the setting called for things like that.

Laurence: But this is the one time, Priscilla, we’ve got to keep on an even keel. It’s like walking Niagara on a tightrope.

Priscilla: Oh, of course. It’s only an act we’re putting on. (Her smile is cryptic as she opens her bag and takes out toilet articles and a pink silk nightdress—or a negligee. It is such a pretty garment that Laurence eyes it with obvious distrust.) And this ought to help dress the stage. (She shakes it out and holds it up in front of her.) Do you suppose I should let down my hair?

Laurence (gloomily): I suppose so.

Priscilla (lightly, as she lets down her hair): That looks more like business, doesn’t it! (She seats herself before the panel-mirror, studying her face in the glass. Then she applies a touch of lip-stick and powder.) It’s lucky my hair is dark, isn’t it?

Laurence (not looking at her): Why?

Priscilla: Mildred’s a platinum blonde. And the law will spot the difference, first crack out of the box.

Laurence (stiffly): I’d rather not bring Mildred into this.

Priscilla: Aren’t you being foolishly chivalrous?

Laurence: No, only decent.

Priscilla: But at the same moment moving heaven and earth to crowbar her out of your life. I’m afraid, darling, you have a single-track mind.

Laurence: Most men have, when they’re fighting for freedom.

Priscilla (quietly, and busy with her make-up): I hope that woman burns in Hell.

Laurence (startled): What woman?

Priscilla: Mildred. For making you face a thing like this, and spoiling your life, and being so arrogant and selfish to the bitter end. (With abrupt intensity.) I hate her.

Laurence: And I suppose, after this, you’ll hate me?

Priscilla: Hate you, Larry? I never felt closer to you in my life. (And in apparent confirmation of that she quietly slips off her blouse. Laurence promptly turns his head away.)

Laurence: Would you like me to go out?

Priscilla (coolly): Don’t be ridiculous, my dear.

(But Laurence, as she drops the silk nightdress over her bare shoulders, goes to the window and looks resolutely out into the night.)

I feel as though I ought to be shaking rice out of my clothes. You can turn around now, Sir Galahad.

Laurence (solemnly confronting her): I wish we could have been more honest about all this. It’s a rotten job, of course. But we can at least go through with it decently.

Priscilla (starting to brush her hair at the dressing table): But a woman can’t feel decent, Laurence, locked up alone in a room with a man.

Laurence: You’ll be as safe here as you’d be in your own home.

Priscilla: You said that before. But women don’t want to be safe, darling. What we love is danger.

Laurence (watching her with the brush): That’s uncommonly nice hair of yours.

Priscilla: Then the night, after all, isn’t a total loss. (She coolly studies herself in the mirror.) I’m an uncommonly nice girl.

Laurence: I always knew that. And you’ve been simply ripping about all this. It’s—it’s about as generous a thing as a woman could do for a man.

Priscilla: Somebody had to do it.

Laurence: But you were almost an answer to prayer.

Priscilla: No, an outpost of precaution. Didn’t you say those professional corespondents, the kind you go out and hire for this sort of thing, have a habit of blackmailing the unhappy gentleman, of bleeding him for life, once they know they’re figuring in a collusory divorce?

Laurence: That’s why you’re so wonderful, facing all this to help a down-and-outer, a good-for-nothing friend like me.

Priscilla: You’re not good-for-nothing, Larry. You’ve always summed up pretty big in my estimation. That’s why I hate to see a spoiled and selfish woman ruin your life. And if you’re going to get your freedom, I’m glad to be the one to help.

Laurence: I didn’t think women were like that. Mildred, I’m afraid, left me with a weakened faith in them, just as scarlet fever leaves you with a weakened heart.

Priscilla: We’re more alike than you imagine, my dear. We only do our hair differently. But using an amateur, on an occasion like this, must have its disadvantages.

Laurence: I don’t see where.

Priscilla: You could at least be getting a little fun out of the thing with a professional who wouldn’t be afraid of putting grape leaves in her hair.

Laurence: Grape leaves?

Priscilla: The symbol, I believe, of abandon.

Laurence: That’s unkind of you, Priscilla. A man isn’t looking for fun, in an ordeal like this. It would be like trying to picnic in a graveyard. I’m not in the habit of taking women to hotels.

Priscilla: I know you’re not, Laurence. You’re so intrinsically clean and straight-cut and honest that you’re in a panic at the mere thought of being here with me.

Laurence: It’s a pill I’ve got to swallow. And the sooner it’s down the better.

Priscilla: Thanks, darling.

Laurence: Oh, I don’t mean you. You’re the one redeeming part of it. You lift everything, at one stroke, out of the sordid. And it’s loyalty like that brings back a man’s faith in women. As I’ve just said, I was beginning to think they were all selfish.

Priscilla: They are, old dear. (She laughs a little.) But I’m not going to wind about you like a cobra.

Laurence (studying her with a steadying eye): I love the way the shadow falls across your shoulder that way. And it’s such a smooth shoulder.

Priscilla (with defensive flippancy): Aren’t you passing a red light? And I’d like to smoke, if it wouldn’t look improper.

Laurence: I’m sorry. (He punctiliously holds out his cigarette case.) Of course it’s all right to smoke.

(They light up and smoke together. He watches her as she sits in front of him, silently smoking.)

Why have you never married, Priscilla?

Priscilla (blowing a cloud): Because you did, darling.

Laurence (absorbing his shock): Hadn’t we better keep away from all that? (And to fortify himself, he takes another drink.)

Priscilla (watching him): And you’d better keep away from that brandy. A long bottle sometimes gives a man a short memory.

Laurence: Oh, I’ll walk the tightrope all right. (He fixes a drink for her.) And another snifter will brace you up a bit.

Priscilla (declining the drink): No thanks. It’s apt to dull the edges of things.

Laurence: They need to be dulled. (He looks at his watch.) It’s about time, in fact, you were getting into bed.

Priscilla (pouting a little): I wish you wouldn’t be so prosaic about it.

Laurence (bitterly): There’s damn little poetry in it, my dear.

(She laughs at his solemnity as she shakes down her nightie, kicks off her slippers, and crawls into bed. Laurence walks to the window as she piles the pillows together so she can half sit up, in the bed, as she smokes and watches him.)

Priscilla: We’re really liars, aren’t we?

Laurence (over his shoulder): Why do you say that?

Priscilla: Because we’re cheating; we’re fooling the law by pretending to be something that isn’t true. We’re pretending to be lovers, to be knee-deep in a life of sin. And all the time we’re staying as pure as the driven snow.

Laurence (indignantly, as he approaches the bed): If we’re dishonest about it, it’s the fool law makes us that way.

Priscilla: Why didn’t she go out to Reno?

Laurence: Who?

Priscilla: Your opulent Mildred. She’s so rotten rich she really ought to be paying you alimony.

Laurence: Let’s not go into that.

Priscilla: All right. But Mildred always did manage to have the plums fall in her lap. You know as well as I do it’s you should be getting this divorce. But I love you for being so chivalrous about it.

Laurence: It seems rather a lopsided sort of chivalry when I remember how I’ve brought you into it. (His laugh is mirthless.) You, that I never made a pass at in all my life.

Priscilla: No, worse luck.

Laurence: Yet, for years now, we’ve been mighty good friends.

Priscilla: Ever since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, Kimo Sabe. From that day I fell out of the cherry tree and bunged my knee and you tied it up with your best silk handkerchief and bought me a banana split.

Laurence: It wasn’t as big a bung as you pretended.

Priscilla: Wasn’t it, now? The mark’s still there. Would you like to see it?

Laurence: I’ll take your word for it.

Priscilla: I must have been about seven then. And you were like a prince out of a story book to me, something in shining armor.

Laurence: Who later turned into common clay.

Priscilla: That’s the trouble, my dear. You didn’t. (She reaches over and takes his hand.) You’re still a bit of all right, or I wouldn’t be here in this room tonight. That’s almost a poem, isn’t it?

Laurence (warningly): Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You mustn’t do that.

Priscilla: Do what?

Laurence: Make love to a man whose world is tumbling down about his ears.

Priscilla: That wouldn’t be cricket, would it?

(He sits on the bed and looks into her eyes. Then he rather guardedly pats her bare shoulder.)

Laurence: You are a good sort. You’re about the only girl I know in all the wide world I’d feel safe with at a time like this.

Priscilla: Am I safe?

Laurence (taking a grip on himself): I prefer being a man of honor, even when I’m doing something dishonorable.

Priscilla (laughing a little as she lies back): This is dishonorable, isn’t it?

Laurence: It seems to have all the earmarks. We’re registered here, remember, as man and wife.

Priscilla: As Mr. and Mrs. Amos Alderney of Morristown. Alderneys are cows, aren’t they?

Laurence (refusing to be sidetracked): We’re here alone, as man and wife. We’re locked together in this room, at midnight. We’re—

Priscilla: Don’t make it too exciting, old top.

Laurence: Then please don’t keep joking about it, Priscilla. It’s hell enough without that.

Priscilla: It’s so bad, really, there ought to be a little compensation somewhere.

(As he retreats and reaches for the bottle of Napoleon brandy.) No, darling, I don’t mean a drink.

Laurence: What would you like?

Priscilla (after studying him for a moment): Let’s make it a cigarette. (She lies back in bed, quietly smoking, as Laurence sits stiffly in the near-by chair. They are silent for at least ten seconds, Priscilla staring at the ceiling.) Life’s a mess, isn’t it?

Laurence: A putrid mess.

Priscilla: We want what we can’t have; and we don’t want what we’ve got; and we break our neck trying to be happy and don’t really know how.

Laurence: And we make laws we know we can’t keep, and we’ve nothing much left to steer by.

Priscilla: They’re silly, aren’t they? Laws, I mean. And commandments.

Laurence: Terribly silly.

Priscilla: Especially when it’s rather nice to break ’em.

Laurence (stoutly): But we’ve got to have a code of some sort Especially women.

Priscilla: Every woman has, old dear. But it’s like a girdle. It has to have a two-way stretch.

Laurence: When you say things like that I remember your bark’s much worse than your bite.

Priscilla: You don’t know me.

Laurence: I know you’re the most honorable girl I ever—ever—

Priscilla: Ever told to take her hair down.

Laurence: Let’s not dance on this tombstone.

Priscilla (pointedly): Let’s not keep it a tombstone.

(That challenge brings him to the bedside, where he stands gazing down at her. She meets his gaze without flinching. Her arms are moving up toward him when the shrill call of the telephone bell breaks the silence. It calls and calls still again, until Laurence turns and takes up the receiver.)

Laurence (at ’phone): Hello . . . hello . . . What is it? . . . But I don’t know anything about whitewear . . . That doesn’t interest me . . . No, this is not Mr. Ekelstein.

(That intrusion of the outside world has obviously brought him back to actuality. He slams the receiver angrily down, looks about the room, and consults his watch. Priscilla quietly eyes him as he paces the room, as he stops to adjust furniture and then sedately hangs up her coat and blouse.)

Priscilla: Putting your house in order?

Laurence (almost snappily): In more ways than one. (He goes to the up-center door, unlocks it, and looks out. Priscilla, turning an her side, spots the radio-cabinet and experiments with the dials.) I wish time wouldn’t drag so. (He relocks the door.)

Priscilla: That doesn’t sound very princely, old potato.

Laurence: You know what I mean, Priscilla. I can’t breathe properly until this mess is over with. And it’s you I’m worrying about, more than myself.

Priscilla (still busy with the radio): It’s like being locked up in a lion’s cage, isn’t it?

Laurence: I wouldn’t say that. (He crosses to the bed and looks down at her.) But I wish I could relax the way you do.

Priscilla: That’s something you should learn from women and cats. (She tosses one of her pillows to where he stands at the footboard, and continues to fuss with the radio while Laurence again looks at his watch.) A watched pot, remember, never boils. Don’t fuss, darling. Listen to the pretty music.

(She has succeeded in getting a station, which gives them the strains of “Beautiful Lady”—or “The Blue Danube.” She lights a cigarette, which she passes over to him. Then, after softening the radio music, she lights a second cigarette for herself. Laurence adjusts the footboard pillow and gingerly lowers himself to the edge of the bed, his position in reverse to Priscilla’s. They smoke and listen to the music for a few seconds. Then Laurence lifts his head and looks at his roommate, bewildered by the unreality of the thing.)

Laurence: How did this happen, anyway?

Priscilla: Don’t you remember? We were dancing at the Park Lane. You were saying you hadn’t danced with me for over a year. And I asked you if I seemed as light on your feet as ever. And you forgot yourself and held me a little closer and said I danced divinely.

Laurence: You always did.

Priscilla: And that took my grateful eyes up to your face and I said: “You’re looking tired, Larry.” And you answered: “I’m worried, Priscilla.” And I said: “Wall Street?” And you said: “No, Mildred. We’ve agreed to disagree.”

Laurence: Did I put it that tritely?

Priscilla: Men do, for some reason. But we’ll let that pass. Then I said: “Does that mean Reno?” And you said: “It ought to, but Mildred’s rather obdurate. And I have to hold things down at the office this summer.” Then I pretended to be surprised and said: “So they’re making you the goat?”

Laurence: I didn’t put it that way.

Priscilla: Of course you didn’t, my chivalrous angel. You said you were giving Mildred the divorce. But you hated the sordid business of taking a soiled daughter of joy to a hotel, just to get the statutory grounds. And you were annoyed when I said it sounded rather exciting.

Laurence: And equally expensive, once the soiled lady gets wise to the situation.

Priscilla: Yes, you told me all that. And I said: “Why not pick your lady accordingly?” Then you asked what I meant by that. And I said: “Why not take me?”

Laurence: I keep wondering why I ever let myself do it.

Priscilla: A friend in need is a friend indeed. That’s trite too, isn’t it?

Laurence (sitting up and looking at her): I never thought a woman could be that big-hearted.

(She reaches out and pats his knee.)

You’ve been so fine and gallant and generous about this, I—I can’t quite understand it.

Priscilla (with a Mona-Lisa smile): Can’t you, darling?

Laurence: Do you mind not calling me darling?

Priscilla: Why not, darling?

Laurence: Because it kind of mixes things up. And we’ve got to keep our heads to the bitter end.

Priscilla: But why should it be bitter? I thought I was brought here, in the eyes of the law, just to be affectionate. And if the law says I’m to be that sort of woman, who am I to thumb my nose at the Supreme Court of this august and sovereign State?

Laurence (frowning over her levity): I like your spirit, darling, but—

Priscilla: There; you’re doing it yourself.

Laurence: Doing what?

Priscilla: Calling me darling.

Laurence: Well, that’s easy enough to do, when you’re not sitting on a keg of gunpowder. (He slips away from her outstretched hand, gets up, and begins pacing the floor.) But you’ve got to remember we’re on thin ice here, and—

Priscilla: I thought it was gunpowder.

Laurence: —and it’s no time to be flippant. It’s so tragic, when I stop to think about it, that I’d like to call it off, right now.

Priscilla: And go back to Mildred?

Laurence (as Priscilla reaches out and shuts off the radio): Not in a hundred years!

Priscilla (lying back in bed): I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow her house in.

Laurence (walking back and forth): It’s you I’m thinking about.

Priscilla: Don’t worry about me, darling. I’m only standing by when you change a tire.

Laurence (ruminatively): The thing is, of course, to get going again.

Priscilla: Yes, you must get going again, Larry. This isn’t the end of everything, remember. Perhaps it’s only the beginning.

Laurence: You’re a good little soldier. (He watches her as she slips out of bed and crosses to the dressing table.) What are you doing?

Priscilla (before the mirror): Powdering my nose. Even a good little soldier should look respectable when she’s breaking the Seventh Commandment.

Laurence: But we’re only pretending to.

Priscilla (turning and inspecting him): Then wouldn’t it—er—wouldn’t it look a little more like business if you took off that coat of yours?

Laurence (determinedly): I prefer facing this with my clothes on.

Priscilla: So there is a double standard, after all.

(But Laurence, with his watch in his hand, fails to hear her, all his thoughts plainly on their zero hour.)

Laurence (pointing to the bed): You’d better get back in there.

Priscilla (slipping into bed): Is this when the powder keg blows up?

Laurence (solemnly): In two minutes I’ll have to telephone down for those Martinis and turkey sandwiches.

Priscilla (tucking herself in): How many sandwiches?

Laurence (anxiously adjusting bedspread and restoring pillow): Two, of course.

Priscilla: Make it four, darling. I’m feeling rather empty.

Laurence: Empty?

Priscilla: All life’s empty, when you stop to think about it.

Laurence: This night will be full enough, before it’s over.

Priscilla: But it’s not over yet.

(That, however, is lost on Laurence, who is hovering aver the ’phone, watch in hand.)

Laurence (grimly): Here goes.

Priscilla (abruptly sitting up): Do you mind doing something first?

Laurence: What?

Priscilla: Kissing me, just once.

Laurence: My dear, you mustn’t take this so seriously.

(But he comes to the side of the bed and kisses her.)

Priscilla (sinking back): There wasn’t much kick in that, was there?

Laurence (retreating to ’phone table): There can’t be, when you’re sitting on a volcano.

Priscilla (with a quaver of disappointment in her voice): Then let’s get ready for the eruption.

Laurence: If you’re worrying about them seeing you when they come in, remember, you can keep your face to the wall.

Priscilla: Have they the right to turn me around? Like a lazy Susan?

Laurence: They daren’t touch you. Nobody’s going to touch you.

Priscilla: That sounds rather disappointing.

Laurence (taking up ’phone): Quiet, please. . . . Hello. . . . Give me room-service, please. . . . Will you send up two Martini cocktails and four turkey sandwiches to room 1727. . . . No, four sandwiches. . . . Right away, please. (He puts down receiver, goes to the bathroom and comes out wiping his face with a hand towel. Then he turns out the lights, one by one, leaving the room in darkness.)

Priscilla (in a stage whisper): It mustn’t be dark.

Laurence: You’re right, of course it mustn’t. (He fusses with the lights, turning them all on and then reducing them to two.)

Priscilla: That’s better. (Still in a stage whisper.) Shouldn’t you have your pajamas out?

Laurence (perplexed): Out where?

Priscilla: Out of your bag. Lying around somewhere.

Laurence (gloomily): I suppose so. (He opens Priscilla’s bag, takes out unmistakably feminine things, realizes his mistake, and turns to his own bag, through which he searches as he throws things out.) I haven’t any.

Priscilla: What a neglectful groom!

Laurence: Well, pajamas or no pajamas, we’ll see this through.

Priscilla (stoutly): Of course we will.

(Laurence, watch in hand, paces the floor. Then he goes to the up-center door.)

Laurence (tensely): Listen.

Priscilla (up on one elbow): Are they coming?

Laurence (indignantly, after a wait): I’d like to know what I’m paying those slackers for.

Priscilla (sitting up, rather startled at the thought): Supposing they never come?

Laurence (unhappily): I almost wish they wouldn’t.

Priscilla: But where does that leave me?

Laurence (holding up a finger): Listen. (He backs slowly away from the door, awaiting the knock which finally sounds there. He opens the door, his hand unsteady. Bellboy steps briskly in with his loaded tray. The boy is followed by two men, one heavy-bodied, smoking a cigar and wearing a bowler hat, the other small and lean and cynically indifferent. Laurence, as they brush Bellboy aside, makes a pretense of stopping them.)

Laurence: Keep out of here. What does this mean?

First Detective: Business, buddy.

Laurence (loudly): You can’t come in here.

First Detective: Can’t we? Spot the dame, Davie.

(As the Second Detective circles about the bed Priscilla, with an audible gasp of indignation, keeps turning her face away from him.)

First Detective (with official solemnity): That woman isn’t your wife, Mr. Bentley.

Laurence: Get out of here.

First Detective (doggedly): That woman’s not Mildred Bentley.

(But the Second Detective’s curiosity takes him so far around the bed that Priscilla disappears under the coverlets, which the officer is all for lifting away.)

Laurence (genuinely angry): Keep away from that woman. Stand back, or I’ll knock you for a goal.

Second Detective: Keep cool, captain.

(But Laurence can’t keep cool. He makes a pass at the officer, who ducks and dodges the blow. Bellboy still stands with his tray poised, missing nothing.) Cool down. Cool down. (As he backs away.) You can have her.

First Detective (with the air of a job well done): All right, Davie. We’ve got it. Let’s blow.

Laurence (wearily): Get out of this room.

Second Detective: We’re on our way, captain.

(They go out and leave the dazed Laurence staring at the waiting and expressionless Bellboy. Laurence finally sees the tray and remembers the world about him.)

Laurence: Put ’em on the table there.

Bellboy: Quite so, sir.

Laurence (giving bill): And here’s another fiver for you.

Bellboy: Thank you, sir.

Laurence: You know what it’s for?

Bellboy: Sure. To keep my trap shut. (He moves toward the door.) Happy landing.

Laurence (as Bellboy goes out, closing the door after him): Happy landing! It isn’t a landing at all. It’s a crack-up. (He slumps into a chair, so tired and wretched-looking that Priscilla resolutely slips out of bed and crosses to him.)

Priscilla: But it’s over and done with, my dear. (She tries to shake him out of his apathy.) It’s not a crack-up. Nothing’s happened to you. Look, you’re still alive.

Laurence (gazing at her with unseeing eyes): Am I?

Priscilla (with a sigh): Well, roughly speaking, you are.

Laurence: I get what you mean, my dear. But you’ll never know what I’ve been through, this last few weeks. (He sees the Martinis on the tray and reaches for one, which he downs at a gulp.) And this last two hours has been the worst of all. (He reaches for the other cocktail and downs it.)

Priscilla: Poor old Larry!

Laurence: It’s been Hell.

Priscilla: Perhaps it’s Hell because it’s been paved with good intentions.

Laurence (too immured in self-pity to fathom her meaning): The next time I marry, it’s going to be for life. (He takes up one of the turkey sandwiches, looks at it, and disdainfully puts it back on the plate.)

Priscilla: You deserve a woman who’ll stick, Larry. (She reaches over his shoulder and commandeers the plate of sandwiches, which she carries over to the bed. Laurence abstractedly watches her as she eats.)

Laurence: You know, Priscilla, you’re an extraordinarily courageous woman. (He has a little trouble in articulating the longer words.)

Priscilla (between bites): I’m an extraordinarily hungry one.

Laurence: You’re true blue. You’re wonderful.

Priscilla: Am I?

Laurence: I don’t seem able to—to say it the way I want to. But as you sit there you seem the only thing saved out of the shipwreck.

Priscilla (shading her eyes): But not a sail in sight. (She sobers before his dejected weariness.) You’re all in, Larry.

Laurence: I know I am. And I know what I need. (He pours himself a thumping big glassful of Napoleon brandy, which he swallows neat.)

Priscilla: Don’t, Larry. It’ll do things to you when you’re tired out. (She corks the bottle and stows it away in one of the handbags.) Your troubles aren’t over yet.

Laurence: Yes they are. The last string’s cut. From now on I’m a free man.

Priscilla: Not quite, darling. You’ve got to get your decree yet.

Laurence: That’s a detail that takes care of itself. The duck of freedom’s shot down; the courts can roast it any darned old way they want to. But from now on I’m as free as the wind.

Priscilla (lifting her bag up on the bed): We’ve still got to get out of here.

Laurence: I don’t want to get out of here.

Priscilla: You mustn’t let the lady revert to type and blackmail you.

Laurence: Blackmail me?

Priscilla: Supposing, after doing all this, I sat up and said you ought to make an honest woman of me?

Laurence: But you are an honest woman. That’s what makes you one in a million. (He shakes his head, dolorously.) Things come too late, sometimes, don’t they?

Priscilla: It’s more tragic, darling, when they come too soon. And we’ll talk it all over tomorrow, when our heads are clear.

Laurence (stubbornly): But I want to say it now.

Priscilla: Say what?

Laurence: That my idea of Heaven is being alone here with you to the sound of trumpets.

Priscilla: Are you sure that isn’t just brandy talking?

Laurence: That stuff only loosened my tongue and let out the truth. I’ve always liked you, tremendously. And now I like you better than ever.

Priscilla: Will you tell me that in the morning?

Laurence (standing up, bravely but a trifle unsteadily): I’ll say more in the morning. I’ll tell you that I love you. And if you want me to I’ll tell the wide, wide world.

Priscilla: That’s something I wouldn’t ask, right now.

Laurence (in a wave of gloom): But I’d be a rotter to ask any woman to marry a man who’s made such a mess of life.

Priscilla: The right sort of woman wouldn’t think of that.

Laurence (challengingly): D’you know what you’re saying? (He takes her in his arms and holds her close to him. But Priscilla, solemn-eyed, draws away and stands studying his face. Something in it, apparently, satisfies her, for she finally surrenders to the continuing tug of his arms.)

Priscilla: I know I’ve always wanted you, you blind and blundering old dunderhead.

Laurence: I’m not blind. We went over the top tonight. I’ve seen you under fire. And I know you’re made of the right stuff.

Priscilla (denying herself the luxury of his shoulder): Then I want you to keep on thinking that.

Laurence: The only thing that counts now is that we love each other. That’s something we can’t afford to lose sight of.

Priscilla: We won’t, darling. And you’ll be worth waiting for.

Laurence: We’ll stick it, won’t we?

Priscilla (eluding his outstretched arms): Until the crack of doom.

Laurence: You’re so wonderful I don’t want to lose you.

Priscilla: You won’t.

Laurence (taking up an empty glass): I’ll have a headache in the morning.

Priscilla: That’ll be better than a heartache. (She lowers him into a chair.) Poor tired boy!

Laurence (looking about, a bit dazed): I am tired. And you are too. We’re both in the same boat.

Priscilla (straightening the pillows for him): Then rest here.

Laurence: But I want you here with me. I—I don’t want to lose you tonight.

Priscilla: But being in the same boat doesn’t always excuse people for being in the same bed, darling.

Laurence (heavily, as she eases him down on the bed): I s’pose not. But you won’t leave me, will you?

Priscilla (as she covers him with a rug): I want to keep you more than you want to keep me, my dear.

Laurence (triumphantly though sleepily): Then that makes it unanimous.

(Priscilla slips into the bathroom and returns with a wet washcloth, which she places on his brow. He sighs, but remains silent. She sees, when she stoops over him, that he is asleep. She tiptoes to the bathroom, where she puts on her things, then quietly and quickly packs her bag.)

Priscilla (stooping over the sleeping Laurence): Poor darling!

(On his bosom, as he lies there, she smilingly places her spray of orchids. Then, bending lower, she very guardedly kisses him. She backs away until she comes to her bag, which she takes up. Then still watching the bed, she edges toward the up-center door, which she opens. She reaches out, as she goes through the door, and switches off the remaining lights so that the stage is quite dark at the fall of the curtain.

Curtain

THE SPOTTED VEIL

Don: Do you guzzle all the time?

Virginia: Don’t be snooty, Don. (She opens a box of gumdrops.) This is a holiday.

Don: You’d better wash that mug of yours before Mother blows in.

Virginia: And you’d better get your hands out of your pockets. (She eats a gumdrop.) I came in a taxi, right down through Central Park.

Don: I came in a train, from the other side of Princeton. That’s over sixty miles.

Virginia: Well, Mother came all the way from Shanghai. And that’s over ten thousand miles.

Don (opening hall door and looking out): I wonder what’s keeping her?

Virginia (going back to her cashew nuts): She was late last year. (She nods toward side door.) There are seven trunks in her bedroom. I counted ’em.

Don: Sneak, poking about Mother’s things.

Virginia: Counting isn’t poking. And I know there’s something for us in there. (She eats a gumdrop.) They’re all covered with funny labels.

Don: What are?

Virginia: The trunks, goofy.

Don: If they’re as plastered up as your face they must be funny.

(While Virginia mops the chocolate from her lips Don takes a look in through the bedroom door. The sight of the trunks seems to depress him.)

It isn’t her trunks I want to see—it’s Mother.

Virginia (crossing and looking over his shoulder): I wish I could stay all night with her, for just once.

Don: I wish I could go back to China with her.

Virginia (again mopping her mouth): You’d have to eat with chopsticks.

Don: Rot! Mother doesn’t eat with chopsticks. That’s only the natives. She says the white people in the East live in a world of their own. And everything she does she does beautifully.

Virginia (finding her nut bag empty): If she’s much later we’ll have to stay here for dinner.

Don: Well, if we do, I want you to watch your table manners. No guzzling, remember.

Virginia: Listen. (Joyfully) Here she is.

(Instead of their mother, however, it is Miss Henty who timidly opens the door and steps inside. Her clothes are severe and old-fashioned. She has the bleak austerity of the timeworn schoolteacher she is, but her eyes are quick and her smile is kindly.)

Miss Henty: Is this Master Donald? And is this Miss Virginia?

Don (doubtfully and with a solemn bow): How-do-you-do.

Virginia (with her schoolgirl curtsey): How-do-you-do.

Miss Henty (advancing, more assured): You don’t know me, of course. But I’m Miss Henty. And your mother wanted me to tell you that she’d be here the moment she was free. May I sit down?

Don: Of course. (He solemnly places a chair for her.) Are you a friend of Mother’s?

Miss Henty (seating herself and opening her bag and taking out her knitting): I hope you won’t mind my knitting. But it quiets my nerves. And in a place like New York they need quieting.

Virginia: Then you know Mummy?

Miss Henty: Your mother has been a very good friend to me. I sailed on the same ship with her from Shanghai. I’m on my way to England. It’s my first visit home in fifteen long years.

Don: Then you live in China?

Miss Henty (nodding over her knitting): I teach in an English school out there. And we have some remarkably good schools in the East.

(At her repeated cough she reaches into her bag for her English lozenges, one of which she takes after politely proffering them to the two children, who as politely decline.) There’s nothing like an English acid-drop to ease one’s throat. And I’m not used to your American climate. I went out, you see, by the P and O. And everything was quite different.

Virginia (perfunctorily): Oh.

Don (more eagerly): And you knew Mother in Shanghai?

Miss Henty (ceasing her knitting to study the ring on her finger): No, not until I got to the boat. Shanghai, my dears, is a bewilderingly big city. And a schoolmistress doesn’t see much of it. (She knits again.) It was on the boat your mother made everything so pleasant for me. She spoke to the captain and had me stepped up to a lovely stateroom all by myself. And flowers were sent in every morning. Then she had a gentleman friend make it easier for me with the immigration officers. And when we got to the train in San Francisco another gentleman had a Pullman compartment for New York which he found he couldn’t use. That made it very comfortable for me—another little room all to myself.

Don (loyally): Mother’s always doing things like that.

Miss Henty (looking up from her knitting): She did more, my dears, than I can ever tell you. I’m not given to jewelry. (She lifts a hand to the piece of jewelry at her throat.) But this lovely broach was a gift from her. I was afraid to take it, at first. And I still worry about losing it. But something as beautiful as this can make a staid old body like me feel a bit excited. And rather important.

Don: Because it once belonged to Mother?

Miss Henty (hesitating before his ardor): I suppose so, Master Donald. And I was even more excited when the train pulled out from San Francisco. For there, in my compartment, was a long box of what you call American Beauties.

Don: And that was some more of Mother’s work!

Miss Henty: I’m beginning to suspect that it was, Master Donald. But the card said they were from one of her gentlemen friends. (She sighs.) That was the first time in my life I had ever been sent flowers by a man. And it was foolish, I suppose, but I cried a little over those roses.

Virginia (as Don tries to kill her with a look): I guess you’d rather have had candy.

Miss Henty: You see, I’d never been in America before, and everything was quite new. And quite different. You will laugh at me, I’m afraid, but I was rather worried about Indians and cowboys, like the kind you see in the cinema. I rather thought they would be shooting off their revolvers every time we pulled into a station.

Don (regretfully): But it wasn’t like that, was it?

Miss Henty: No, it wasn’t like that at all. And even here in New York, where I was so afraid of the traffic, a most kind friend of your mother’s placed his motor car at my disposal. So I have only to telephone and there’s a chauffeur waiting to whisk me off wherever I wish to go. I’m rather afraid it’s spoiling me.

Don: Mother’s a peach.

Miss Henty (nodding assent over her knitting): She has so many friends. And all such generous and open-hearted gentlemen.

Virginia: But why isn’t Mother here—when the time’s so short?

Miss Henty: Dear me, I didn’t explain that. (She puts down her knitting and looks first at Virginia and then at Donald.) Your mother, my dears, has been detained by a very important conference.

Don (gloomily): What kind of a conference?

Miss Henty: One on which a great deal seems to depend, Master Donald. That’s why she telephoned and asked me to hurry over to her children. She said I was to keep you from running away until she could get here.

Virginia: Running away! (The mere thought causes her to laugh.) Mother knows we’d never do that, after being without her for a year.

Miss Henty (her sigh an audible one): A year’s a long time, isn’t it?

Don: She’s worth waiting for.

Miss Henty (resuming her knitting): She’ll lose no time in getting here, you may be sure, once she’s free. She’s very proud of you, my dears.

Don: We’re proud of her.

Virginia: I wish she didn’t always have to hurry away so.

Don: She’s a busy woman.

Miss Henty (to Virginia): Does she take time—I mean, does she have time to visit your school?

Virginia: She’s never seen it.

Don (defensively): But she knows it’s the best school in New York. And she’s letting you go to that camp and have a riding pony next summer.

Miss Henty: Then she must be a very kind lady.

Don: You don’t need to tell us that. She lets me have a charge account—and never fusses. And she writes me every week or so. Or almost every week or so. And a longer letter almost once a month. I’ve saved every scrap she’s ever written me.

Miss Henty (after a study of the two): It’s nice to get letters, when you can’t have the—the other thing.

Don: It isn’t so lonesome, is it, after a letter?

Miss Henty (lowering her knitting): Are you lonesome?

Don (squaring his shoulders): Oh, one gets used to things. It’s worse, of course, in the holidays, when the other fellows have homes to go to. (He frowns and walks to the window, trying [to] keep his face straight.) Asia’s a long way off, of course. And I can’t blame Mother if she has to be in the East.

Miss Henty: Why does she have to be in the East?

Don: Well, you see, so many of Father’s interests were there—when he was alive. And for the last seven or eight years she’s had to look after them herself. And that, naturally, means keeping on the job.

Miss Henty: What were those interests?

Don (vaguely): Oh, different things—things that have to be looked after.

Miss Henty: Such as investments?

Don: Yes, probably investments. Mother never bothers us about business. She says school things are more important. And it takes money, of course, to go to a good school. And we can thank Mother for always keeping us in one.

Miss Henty (as she coughs and takes another acid-drop): She is a very kind lady. (But her frown deepens and her needles stop.) What do you do when you are ill?

Don: Our school’s supposed to have the finest infirmary on the continent.

Virginia (not to be outdone): When I had chickenpox last winter, I had two trained nurses. And they gave me the sunroom all to myself.

Miss Henty (sotto-voce): But no mother!

Don (who has resumed his pacing): When I get through with prep school I want to go out to China.

Miss Henty: What will you do in China?

Don: Look after Mother. And be with her there, every day, all the time.

Virginia (the youthful realist): You’d better be sure she wants you first.

(Don turns on her, indignantly, but restrains himself and once more addresses Miss Henty.)

Don: You mustn’t pay much attention to what this kid says, Miss Henty. She’s such a little swine, sometimes, I wonder if Mother’s put her in the right sort of school.

Miss Henty: Oh, Master Donald! I’m sure Miss Virginia is a young lady that her parents would be proud of.

Virginia: But my father’s dead. I can’t even remember him. And I don’t see much more of Mother than I do of—of Santa Claus.

Miss Henty (resorting to the pedagogic): But even though we can’t be close to those who are kind to us, my dear, we mustn’t forget what they are doing to make us happier.

Virginia (subdued by the schoolteacher note): Yes, ma’am.

(A momentary silence falls over them. As the two children sit, obviously constrained, the upstage door opens and Mrs. Claydon steps hurriedly through it and comes to a stop. She makes an extremely attractive and an extremely fashionable figure, still determinedly young, in her modish hat from which hangs a dotted nose veil. If she wears perhaps too much jewelry and make-up, that fact is forgotten in the pleasing conviction of the final picture, especially to the male eye. Her voice is low and vibrant and her movements are quick and suggestive of some inner tension. She holds out her arms, almost theatrically, as she studies her two children.)

Mrs. Claydon: My darlings! My darlings!

Don (with a quaver in his voice): Mother!

(He forgets his dignity as he rushes toward her and flings himself in her arms. His clasp is rather bearlike and a broken laugh escapes Mrs. Claydon as she kisses him. She has to straighten her hat, in fact, before she stoops and kisses Virginia, who has edged less demonstratively in under her mother’s shoulder.)

Mrs. Claydon: My Donald! And my Virginia! At last I have my children in my arms. (She stands with an arm about each, gazing first into one upturned face and then the other. She is genuinely stirred, if not genuinely happy.)

Don (unsteadily): You’re still so beautiful, Mother.

Mrs. Claydon (with a catch in her voice as she holds her son out at arm’s length): And you, my darling, you’re such a big boy now. So tall and manly.

(Over his shoulders she catches sight of Miss Henty, who has been sitting small and forgotten behind her knitting. She sobers at the memory of an outsider. Miss Henty coughs and takes another acid-drop. The mother’s gaze goes back to her son.)

Almost a man now! And telling the wide, wide world what an old lady his mother must be!

Don (as Virginia shoulders in between them): You’ll never be old.

Mrs. Claydon (as she lifts Virginia’s face up): And my little girl! No longer a baby now!

Virginia: I’ll be thirteen in April.

Mrs. Claydon: Don’t say it, darling. (She stoops to kiss her again, but stops, half-smiling, to wipe some of the chocolate smear from the childish mouth.) And that adorable little mouth doesn’t need candy to make it sweet.

Virginia (hanging rather heavily on her mother’s neck): Mummy, why do you wear that veil with the spots on it?

Mrs. Claydon: Don’t you like it, darling?

Virginia: Yes, I like it. But it keeps me from seeing you. Please take it off. It’s got such big spots on it.

Mrs. Claydon: Not spots, sweetheart, merely dots.

(If Mrs. Claydon’s laugh, as she lifts her hands to remove the veil, is slightly caustic, it is Miss Henty more than the children who shows any reaction to it.)

Mrs. Claydon: Your poor dear mother needs this sort of thing. (She removes the veil, studies her face in the mirror, and then reaches out a hand to draw Don closer to her again.) But there mustn’t be anything between me and my children. (She tries to toss both hat and veil on a near-by table, but they fall short. Miss Henty picks them up from the floor. The mother, turning back to the mirror, straightens her hair and touches a handkerchief corner to the violated lip-stick on her mouth.) Is that better?

Don: I can see you now as you really are (He clings to her with boyish awkwardness.) And you’re more adorable than ever. (He rather pompously kisses her hand.)

Mrs. Claydon: You funny boy! (This, she sees, has hurt him a little. She gives a coo of affection as her arms go contritely about him again.) You big darling. And with such nice red lips. I know you must be getting loads and loads of spinach.

Virginia (stoutly): I don’t eat it. And they can’t make me. (But the thought of eating prods her memory.) Can we stay for dinner here, Mother?

Mrs. Claydon: Dinner. (She backs away a little, looks at her jeweled wrist watch, and stands silent a moment. She observes Virginia’s hungry eyes on the watch, and smiles again.) We can talk about that later, my dear.

Virginia: What a darling watch!

Mrs. Claydon (unbuckling her watch): Then it shall go on the arm of my darling daughter.

Virginia (reading disapproval from both Don and Miss Henty): Oh, Mother, I couldn’t.

Mrs. Claydon (buckling it about the plump little arm): Nonsense. Mother has another. And if it makes you happy it makes me happy. And that’s why we’re here, just to snatch at our puny little share of happiness.

Don (proudly): And you live just to make other people happy.

Mrs. Claydon (studying him with startled eyes): Do I? (She laughs a little nervously and notices that Miss Henty’s head is bent low over her knitting.) But supposing we all sit down. There’s so much to say. So much, and so little time to say it in.

(They sit down, the children with constraint, their mother reaching rather nervously for her cigarette case, which is a very handsome one.)

Don (out of the silence): I made the school team last month, Mother.

Virginia (in a mocking undertone): What a man! What a man!

Mrs. Claydon: Did you, darling? (But her tone is a remote one.) That was wonderful.

Virginia: Feel his muscles, Mummy.

Don (to Virginia): Don’t be silly.

Miss Henty (starting to fold up her knitting): I know you’d rather be alone with your children.

Mrs. Claydon: No, don’t go; please. The fact is, I’m almost afraid of them. They—they really do terrible things to me.

Miss Henty: It must be hard, when you see them so seldom.

Mrs. Claydon (sighing as she looks at her offspring): Darlings, you really do terrible things to your poor mother.

Don (puzzled): How could we?

Mrs. Claydon (rising and pacing the floor): You don’t mean to, but you make life very hard for me.

Virginia: Because we seem so big?

Mrs. Claydon (with a quaver of real distress): No, dearest; because I can see so little of you; because we’re in such different worlds. It—it makes me feel so desolate and homeless and far away from you. (She surprises them by starting to cry. She cries quietly but unmistakably, for an abandoned moment or two.) Because it’s all wrong. (She mops her eyes and tries to control herself.) But one has to be sensible. This should be the happiest hour of all the year for us, and here I’m spoiling it. (Her smile; through her tears, is a valorous one.)

Don (equally valorous): It is the happiest hour, Mother.

Mrs. Claydon: But it goes so quickly. And it leaves everything so torn up by the roots. And it tells me there can’t be any turning back.

Don: Turning back from what?

Mrs. Claydon: From what we make of life, my darling. Or from what life makes of us. (She holds his face between her hands and looks into his eyes. Then she breathes deep, as though to shoulder the more tragic note aside.) But I didn’t come here to preach at you, my precious. And there are so many, many things that we must talk about.

Don (stubbornly): Why can’t it be changed, if it’s all wrong? Why couldn’t you just chuck China, for good, and stay with us here in America?

Mrs. Claydon (looking almost rebelliously about her): Yes, why couldn’t I?

Virginia: Then we’d be a family.

Don: And I wouldn’t hate the holidays any more. (He touches her skirt hem, almost reverently.) I’d have something to go home to, then, if you were here.

(Mrs. Claydon catches her breath, not quite able to strangle the sob that breaks from her throat.)

Mrs. Claydon: My poor lost children!

Don (plainly at sea): But we’re not lost, Mother.

Mrs. Claydon: No, dearest, it’s your mother who’s lost. It’s the years I’ve wasted, out there, the meaningless empty years.

Don: They wouldn’t be empty if I were out there with you. I’d see to that. And as soon as I’m through with prep school I’m going straight out to Shanghai. (He laughs at the picture.) I’ll walk in on you, someday, without a word of warning, and you’ll think it’s only a dream.

Mrs. Claydon (in a quickly hardened voice): No; Donald; no. Not to that terrible country.

Don (triumphantly): Well, if it’s that bad I ought to be there to share it with you.

Mrs. Claydon: But you are an American. And you belong here in America. You—you mustn’t even think of such things.

Don: But I’m always thinking it, Mother. It seems to make everything easier, when you’re so far away.

Mrs. Claydon: My darling, you make me so happy and then so unhappy all in one breath. You’re so fine and generous and trustful that you—you frighten me.

Don: Then watch me walk in on you.

Mrs. Claydon: You mustn’t be absurd, dearest. After your prep school you’ll have to go to Princeton, or Harvard. And you must make me proud of you. You must go through with flying colors, my son.

Virginia (feeling out of it): And how about me?

Mrs. Claydon: And you, my precious, must grow up into a nice American girl. And to do that you must go on with your nice American school.

Virginia (bluntly): It’s not as nice as you think. (More hopefully) And Miss Henty says there are good schools out in China.

Mrs. Claydon: Miss Henty is quite right. But there are other things that are not so good, things my baby lamb would never understand.

Don: Then why do you have to go back to a country like that? You’re as American as I am. And when you come back like this it seems to make you so—so foreign. And—and so far away from us. (He struggles to keep back the tears. But he stands very straight. His mother puts a hand on his shoulder.)

Mrs. Claydon: Do your eyes bother you, darling?

Don (still trying to control himself): Why, Mother?

Mrs. Claydon: Because you seem to be squinting a little.

(He draws back from her hand.)

And such sweet eyes should never squint. I think your school doctor had better examine them.

Don (swallowing hard): My eyes are all right, Mother. (More rebelliously) It’s because you’re so far away from us that’s all wrong.

Mrs. Claydon (taking herself in hand and speaking more quietly): Donald dear, please remember that I have your poor dead father’s business affairs to look after, out there.

Don (sotto-voce but bitterly): Out there!

Mrs. Claydon: I owe that to his memory. And I owe it to my little daughter and my big manly son.

Don: What was Father’s business? He’s been dead eight years now. That ought to be long enough to wind up a man’s business.

Mrs. Claydon: Don’t be disrespectful, darling. Those affairs were very, very complicated. And they still need me. (She lifts Virginia’s arm so as to read the time on the little jeweled wrist watch there.) And you must be brave and self-reliant and remember that your mother knows best.

Don (struggling to keep the shake out of his voice): I was hoping, this time, you’d be saying you didn’t need to go back. I suppose that sounds selfish. (He lifts her hand and presses it against his cheek.) I am selfish, where you’re concerned.

Mrs. Claydon (looking at him with misty eyes): My Prince in shining armor! You rather take my breath away. You make me happy, and hurt me, and almost break my heart.

(The telephone rings. But she ignores it, staring into her son’s face. It rings again. Don offers to answer it, but his mother intervenes. She starts, looks over her shoulder, and with a hardening face takes up the receiver.)

Mrs. Claydon (at telephone): Hello. . . . Yes. . . . But it is not possible. This is the hour I must give to my children. (She drops into French, rattling on for a frantic minute or two.) . . . But you can’t come here. . . . No, not even the Baron. It is difficult enough, without that. . . . I know, I know, my dear. But I can’t talk about that now. . . . Yes, Tyrant, San Francisco on Thursday morning. It means leaving tonight, of course. . . . But backgrounds are expensive. And this one is quite important. It’s the trellis that holds up the drooping rose. . . . Au revoir, then, until Thursday.

(She looks up, from the instrument, and sees with relief that Don has walked to the window, that Virginia is busy with what is left of her chocolate bar, and that Miss Henty is apparently deep in her knitting. But her inward tension is obvious and it takes an effort to bring herself back to her immediate surroundings.)

Mrs. Claydon (smiling bravely as she presses Virginia to her side): Oh, my darlings, what am I to do?

(She kisses Virginia’s plump arm but at the same time makes it a point to consult the wrist watch.) The time is so short, and I’ve so many questions to ask you. (She crosses to the bedroom door, opens it, and looks smilingly into the other room.) And you haven’t even asked what I’ve brought you.

Virginia (with delusive primness): That wouldn’t be polite.

Don: All we want is you, Mother.

Virginia (tentatively): We were hoping, of course, that we might stay for dinner.

(Mrs. Claydon stands arrested at that, hungrily regarding her children.)

Please, Mother.

Mrs. Claydon (escaping on a side issue): My angel, can it be that you have adenoids? I think you ought to tell Miss Teasdale to—

Virginia: It’s Miss Tisdale, Mother.

Mrs. Claydon (who in her nervousness lights a cigarette): Well you must tell Miss Tisdale to have the school doctor examine that adorable little nose of yours.

Virginia (always the realist): Will it hurt?

Mrs. Claydon: Just a little, my love. But so many things in life hurt a little. I want my beautiful girl to have a beautiful voice. And you mustn’t slump, my dear. Poise, you’ll find, is rather important. Miss Henty will agree with me on that.

Miss Henty (quietly): It is sometimes very important.

(Their glances lock, but the young mother turns to Donald, studying his stern young face.)

Mrs. Claydon: And you, Sir Galahad, you must be careful about football. You mustn’t get any of those beautiful straight bones broken. And you must remember about your woolens, as soon as the weather gets cold. It may not be American, but the English are right about wool. And remember, too, that it’s important to meet nice people.

Don (who hasn’t been listening): Mother, when did you learn to smoke?

Mrs. Claydon (looking from him to her cigarette): Don’t you approve of it?

Don: I’d rather you didn’t.

Mrs. Claydon: Adorable, foolish boy! (She puts the cigarette down, grinding out its glow.) That’s living in the East, I suppose. People do queer things, out there.

Virginia: They smoke opium, don’t they, Mother?

Mrs. Claydon (ignoring Virginia): You’re not interested in girls, are you, Donald?

Don: I should say not. I’ve never seen one yet that was a patch on you.

Mrs. Claydon (her rewarding smile a brief one): But someday, I suppose, a nice girl will come along and my knight in shining armor will go riding away with her.

Don (quite firmly): No, Mother, not unless she’s as lovely as you are. And they’re not made that way.

Mrs. Claydon (with her nervous laugh): How’s that for flattery, Miss Henty?

Miss Henty (bent over her needles): It’s so wonderful I should think you’d never want to run away from it.

Mrs. Claydon (desperately): I don’t. It’s all I have left—the faith of my children.

Miss Henty (quietly): Then why not keep it?

Mrs. Claydon (pacing the floor): Yes, why not keep it? And why not keep them? (She flings herself into a chair and draws Don and Virginia close, one on each side of her.) You’re mine. You’re the only real things in my life. And I don’t intend to give you up. I can’t give you up. (Her arm tightens about Don.) I want you, darlings, as much as you want me.

Don (tremulously): Then don’t leave us, Mother.

Mrs. Claydon (defiantly): Why should I? Why should I race off to the other side of the world, when everything I want and hunger for is here?

Virginia (slightly incredulous): Does that mean you’ll stay with us, for all the rest of your life?

Mrs. Claydon: Why shouldn’t I, when life is so short?

Don (glowing at the thought): We could get a cottage somewhere in the country, and have a garden and dogs. And I’d always be with you, and everything would be peaceful and quiet.

Mrs. Claydon (closing her eyes): Darling!

Virginia: And I could have a riding pony, for keeps, and somebody to get in bed with on rainy mornings. And honestly, Mother, the food in that school isn’t everything it ought to be.

Mrs. Claydon: And I could start all over again and learn to understand my own children. (She laughs as she squeezes them closer to her.) And Don will have his dogs, and I’ll have my roses, and we’ll manage the riding pony in some way, even though we’re as poor as church mice. (She sits, holding the dream, a smile on her face as she stares off into space. But the smile, for some reason, fades away. It disappears entirely as a knock sounds on the up-center door, an abrupt and an authoritative knock which, in the silence, is repeated. She opens the door and Baron Baroti steps into the room. He is middle-aged, well-dressed, suavely solemn, and only banteringly respectful. But his quietness suggests power, just as his slightly halting English suggests the foreigner.)

Mrs. Claydon (almost sharply as she confronts him): I said the Plaza at five.

Baron (coolly showing his watch face): But the time, dear lady, does not permit.

Mrs. Claydon: But surely, an hour with my children—

Baron (looking about): Ah, your children.

Mrs. Claydon (nervously): This is my son, Donald. And this is my daughter, Virginia. This, children, is my old friend, Baron Baroti.

(As the children stiffly bow and curtsey the Baron inspects them with a sort of bland tolerance. The mother, stung by his smiling contempt, pushes between the Baron and her offspring.)

Baron (seeing her in a new light): Ah, the lighthearted lady, I see, was not always lighthearted.

Mrs. Claydon (tensely): Please be careful.

Baron: I am an intruder, I see, in an unexpected world.

Mrs. Claydon: But it is a world that belongs to me.

Baron: And its inhabitants, I admit, are charming. Yes, ma cherie, they are most charming children. And it saddens me to think that I must shorten your hour with them. But I cannot, unfortunately, control the flight of time.

Mrs. Claydon (sotto-voce): You mean you can’t control yourself.

Baron (with his mocking bow): Not, madame, where you are concerned. And it is later than you think.

Mrs. Claydon (dreamily): It is later than I think. (She looks at her children. Then she squares her shoulders and turns defiantly to the Baron.) But it’s not too late. I know where I belong now. (She makes it an ultimatum.) I’m not going back.

(Virginia, with a childish cry of “Goody!” tries to catch at her mother’s skirt. Mrs. Claydon, holding her back, confronts the Baron, over the child’s head.)

Baron: That is absurd.

Mrs. Claydon (with finality): I am not going back.

Baron: That is impossible.

Mrs. Claydon: Then the impossible is about to happen. I have decided to stay here with my children.

Baron: But I have something to say about that.

(Mrs. Claydon’s glance goes from the children to the distant figure of Miss Henty, who is quietly tucking her knitting away in her handbag.)

Mrs. Claydon (warningly): Not here. Not now!

Baron (firmly): But nevertheless it must be said.

Miss Henty (who has risen and moved upstage with quiet dignity): I see that I’m in the way here. (From her dress neck she takes the broach, which she holds out to Mrs. Claydon.) You were good enough to give me this broach. But I must ask you to take it back.

Mrs. Claydon (startled): Why should I do that?

Miss Henty (her voice low): You have been very kind to me. But I have my reasons for not keeping it.

Mrs. Claydon: Why shouldn’t you?

Miss Henty (as their glances lock): Because I’m not as stupid as I seem.

(As Mrs. Claydon stares down at the broach which has been dropped in her hand Miss Henty walks firmly and quietly to the up-center door, which she opens. She turns, in the doorway, and seems about to speak. But she merely gazes at Donald and Virginia, shakes her head, and goes out.)

Don (indignantly): Mother, why should that old frump be rude to you? (More indignantly, as he inspects the Baron.) And who is this man?

Mrs. Claydon (reprovingly): Donald!

Virginia (frankly): I don’t like him.

Baron (with his first showing of impatience): And I don’t like this situation. It would be as well, perhaps, if we made it plain that—

Mrs. Claydon (warningly): Attention!

Baron: Then I might be permitted a word or two with you, alone.

(She looks at him with trapped-animal eyes, turns to her children, and forces a smile.)

Mrs. Claydon (herding them toward the bedroom door): And my babies haven’t seen what I brought them. Just poke about in there, on the other side of the dresser, and see what you find.

Virginia: What is it, Mummy?

Mrs. Claydon: A blessed little mandarin-coat and a Japanese parasol all covered with flowers. And two bracelets of jade. And five pounds of French chocolates to smear on your adorable little face.

Virginia (hanging back): But we aren’t allowed chocolates, Mother. Miss Tisdale would take them away from me.

Mrs. Claydon: Miss Tisdale isn’t going to count any more. The important thing is to be happy.

Virginia: But if they give me a tummyache.

Mrs. Claydon: Then eat what you can and throw the rest away. Even your elders, darling, have to do that sort of thing now and then. (She reaches for Donald, as Virginia promptly disappears through the open door, and lifts his head, smiling down into his gloomy eyes.) And you, Donald, what do you want most in the world?

Don (definitely): You, Mother!

Mrs. Claydon: And you shall have me, my son. (Her glance at the Baron is defiant as she leads the boy toward the open door.) But somewhere in there, I think, you’ll find two English sweaters and a set of golf clubs. And in the package tied with green ribbon you might find a microscope. And the other package is a secret. (She ushers him in through the door, stands regarding him for a moment, and quietly swings the door shut. She turns, with her back against the closed door; her gaze combative and her face hard.)

Baron (coldly regarding her): This cannot go on.

Mrs. Claydon (with her ear close to the door panel): Kindly be more careful.

Baron (with a shrug): The reckless lady at last calling for care!

Mrs. Claydon (advancing slowly toward him): I am not going to leave my babies.

Baron: Babies? They are not babies, and they may, of course, belong to you. But it might be well to remember that I also have some claim there.

Mrs. Claydon: You seem to forget that I’m a mother.

Baron (with his repeated shrug): Is that important?

Mrs. Claydon (bitterly): Important? Not to you, perhaps. But today I’ve learned it’s the only important thing in life. (Her eyes are estimative as she studies him.) You are selfish, of course. And you are usually discreet. But for once you’ve been blundering—blundering and almost stupid.

Baron: But still willing to face facts. And the fact before us, dear lady, is that it’s too late for the leopard to change its spots. (Without quite knowing it he has lifted the hat with the spotted veil from the table beside him. He looks at the large dots, frowns, and drops hat and veil on the table again.) It is absurd. It is impossible.

Mrs. Claydon (desperately): Don’t you see they’re all I have?

Baron (drawing himself up): Am I to be so lightly overlooked?

Mrs. Claydon (disregarding him in her misery): It’s the only light, in all the darkness. And I won’t have it taken away from me.

Baron: But it would be cruel to them, dear lady. And equally cruel to yourself.

Mrs. Claydon (forlornly): They need me.

Baron (stooping over her as she sinks into a chair): Not as I need you. To me, now, you are quite necessary.

Mrs. Claydon (bitterly): Necessary!

Baron: So much so that I propose to be your only protector.

(Mrs. Claydon, stung by that word, rises and stares into his face.)

Mrs. Claydon: For a month or two. Perhaps for a year. Then you’d wave good-by to Shanghai and me. The lion would be willing to leave what’s left to the jackals.

Baron: It goes deeper than that, my dear. (His arms go possessively about her.) You belong to me.

(The bedroom door opens as he holds her in his arms and Donald, carrying the golfbag, steps into the room. He stands unseen, arrested as the strange man’s face bends closer over his mother’s.)

Mrs. Claydon (protestingly): Don’t!

(The boy stiffens at that cry, snatches a driver—made of light balsa-wood—from the golfbag and lets the bag itself fall to the floor.)

Don: How dare you touch my mother. (He aims the blow for the bent head of the Baron. But it falls on the latter’s thick shoulder, with the shaft breaking from the impact. Virginia, eating a French bon-bon, stares wide-eyed from the bedroom door. Mrs. Claydon, breaking free, catches at the boy’s arm as he reaches for another club.)

Don (passionately): I’ll kill him.

Mrs. Claydon (holding him back): Donald, are you mad?

Don (shrill voiced): What right has he to put his hands on you?

(The Baron, smoothing his hair, is able to laugh. It is a deep-chested and contemptuous laugh. But Mrs. Claydon silences it with a gesture.)

Mrs. Claydon (to Donald): He has no right. And I have just told him so.

Baron (pregnantly): There are other things that may as well be told.

Mrs. Claydon: Is that a threat?

Baron (not unconscious of his power): Not at all. But I must ask you to face facts.

Mrs. Claydon: But this is my son. He believes in me.

Don (bewildered yet belligerent): What’s he driving at?

Baron (ignoring the boy and facing Mrs. Claydon): Precisely. He believes in you. (The Baron’s voice grows harder as he goes on.) And I, who respect his feelings a trifle more than he respects mine, am compelled to tell him that that belief depends on his mother’s prompt return to her obligations in Shanghai.

Don (refusing to be ignored): Mother, what does he mean by all this?

Mrs. Claydon (in a voice of wearied listlessness): He’s reminding me, darling, that life is more complicated than I imagined.

Baron: And that the American habit of throwing tea-chests overboard is not always a prelude to independence.

Mrs. Claydon (her warning eye on the Baron): Haven’t you said about enough? (Turning to her son.) He’s reminding me, Donald, that I mustn’t turn my back on those business affairs that keep me in the East.

Baron (with a note of iron): Where your presence is essential.

Mrs. Claydon (facing his grim glance): So those are your terms?

Baron (in French): I am giving you your chance. By showing your faith in me you may retain the faith of your children.

Mrs. Claydon (also in French): That means I must go with you?

Baron: That was the arrangement. And a contract duly entered into should be duly fulfilled. (He consults his watch.) Your time, I regret to say, is limited. You are now in New York, remember. But on Thursday your ship sails from San Francisco.

Virginia (almost wailing): Mummy, you’re not going to leave us?

Mrs. Claydon: Hush, darling.

Don: But why should this man say you’ve got to go back to Shanghai?

(Mrs. Claydon draws her son to her side, holding him close for a silent moment. Then, with an effort, she pulls herself together.)

Mrs. Claydon (with achieved matter-of-factness): There are things, Donald, that I overlooked. There are matters in the East, very complicated business matters, that simply must be attended to.

Don (gloomily): Then you’re going back?

(The telephone rings, before she can answer, and Mrs. Claydon slowly crosses to the desk and takes up the receiver.)

Mrs. Claydon (at telephone): Hello. . . . This is Mrs. Claydon speaking. . . . Oh, two taxis still waiting? (She hesitates.) Tell them to wait. The children will be down in a minute or two. . . . The trunks? Yes, of course. Tell the porter they are ready for him. (She turns away from the telephone and looks at her children. The Baron, confronted by that unhappy trio, takes his hat and gloves from the table.)

Baron: I have invaded, I find, a family gathering where I am most unmistakably de trop. And I cannot intrude on your farewells. I bid you adieu, my gallant Donald. And you also, Mademoiselle Virginia. (He turns to Mrs. Claydon, whose unsteady hand has taken up her hat and heavily dotted nose veil.) And as for the lady with the unmistakably appropriate veil. (He holds his watch face toward her.) I shall be patiently awaiting her in the office downstairs. It is an occasion, I regret to remind her, when time is not to be disregarded. (He holds Mrs. Claydon’s glance for a moment, then turns and goes out up-center door with an almost insolent dignity. The two children, who have watched that departure with hostile eyes, instinctively move toward their mother, once the door has closed again.)

Don (trying to steady his voice): Must you go, Mother?

Mrs. Claydon: Yes, darlings, I must leave you. It—it breaks my heart. But I must go. I must leave my babies.

Don: Don’t call us that, Mother. (With a glance at Virginia, who is crying, as he stiffens his shoulders.) And don’t you start sniffling. No wonder Mother thinks we’re babies.

Virginia: You look a little sniffy yourself.

Mrs. Claydon: No, you’re not babies. But I must leave my manly big son and my great big chocolate-eating daughter. (She puts down the hat and veil, so as to be able to place an arm about each of her children, the brooding mother flanked by her offspring.) Someday, perhaps, we won’t have to do it like this. In a year or two, perhaps, I can come back to you for good. (She turns to her son.) You believe in me, don’t you, Donald?

Don: Of course. But I wish you didn’t have to do business with such hateful men.

Virginia (in a wail): And with foreigners!

Mrs. Claydon: But we have to bow, sometimes, to people of power. (More bitterly.) That’s why I can’t belong to you. I can’t even belong to myself. And that’s why I want you always to be good, children. I want you always to be sweet and pure and noble.

Virginia (between her sobs): Like you, Mother.

Mrs. Claydon: You must be better than I am. Oh, so much better! (She is crying a little. But she tries to smile as she reaches over Virginia’s shoulder for the hat and veil, which the child regards with obvious disfavor.) And now I must let down the veil again, the veil my little girl doesn’t like.

Virginia (tensely): Let me kiss you first.

(Mrs. Claydon presses the girl to her breast and kisses her. Then, swallowing a sob, she turns to her son, who can be seen biting his underlip.)

Mrs. Claydon: Good-by, Donald.

Don (doing his best to act the man): Good-by, Mother.

(As she clings to her two children a knock sounds on the up-center door, and is repeated.)

Mrs. Claydon (with a desperate look about the room): That must be the porter, for my trunks. (A shudder goes through her body.) It is later than I thought. (She looks questioningly into Donald’s face, which is somewhat contorted with grief.) You haven’t lost faith in your mother, have you, my son?

Don: I think you’re perfect.

(She clutches her two children closer, as she looks out into space, and the three, pressed close together, are cut off by the quick fall of the curtain.)

THE DEATH CUP

Andrei (quaveringly): There’s another one gone.

Olga (listlessly, without turning): What’s gone?

Andrei: Your duck’s dead. The last one.

Olga (studying the carcass): My duck! Who killed my duck?

Andrei: He killed himself.

Olga: That sounds foolish.

Andrei: It’s worse than foolish. That duck’s been eating death cups.

Olga: Death cups?

Andrei (as he turns the body over): Those poison mushrooms. They’re almost as thick as the good ones on the prairie sod this fall.

Olga: But we had a meal of them yesterday.

Andrei: Of the good ones. I know a death cup when I see it.

Olga (stunned by the calamity): You’d think a duck would keep away from poisoned things like that.

Andrei: This one didn’t.

Olga (turning over the feathered body): I was counting on him for Christmas. I was thinking, that day, we might have meat again.

Andrei (as his wife wearily lifts her pot to the stove): Meat! (He stares at the empty grub shelf.) It must be seven weeks now since we had a taste of salt pork.

Olga: I’ve still got a slab of rind for greasing my skillet.

Andrei: But there’s weevils in the meal box.

Olga: Weevils don’t worry me. (She hefts the half-empty flour sack.) It’s seeing the flour getting so low chills my blood.

Andrei (dispiritedly): We’ll have to tide over on turnips.

Olga (rebelliously): A body gets tired of turnips twice a day, week in and week out. (She turns belligerently back to the dead duck.) And I’m not going to waste this duck, no matter how he died. I’m going to dress and cook him.

Andrei (jerking the carcass from her hands): Are you crazy, woman? That duck’s full of death-cup poison. That meat would kill you in two minutes. It’s the same poison you’d get from a rattlesnake. (He walks to the door with the carcass and throws it out.) I don’t even want it around here.

Olga (or she sinks into a chair): I’ve a craving for something better than field turnips.

Andrei: So have I. But you can’t grow wheat without plowing the land. And you can’t plow land without a team.

Olga: We haven’t even got a cow left. (Her jaded eye turns to her husband.) You’re too old and spent to follow a plow any more.

Andrei (with stubborn valor): I could throw a furrow, all right, if I’d proper food to stiffen my spine. We’ve got the land here. All it needs is working.

Olga: It’ll take a younger man than you, Andrei.

Andrei: But where’ll you get your man, if you haven’t money?

Olga: Money! (She sighs.) It’s near a year since I handled a bit of silver. (She stares hopelessly out the window.) I don’t know what’s going to happen to us.

Andrei (feeling his shrunken waistline): That turnip pot’s beginning to boil.

Olga (disregarding him): It wouldn’t have been this way if our boy’d stuck to the farm.

Andrei: I don’t hold it against Josef for getting out to make his way.

Olga: I keep trying not to hold it against him. But it’s hard, sometimes.

Andrei: That boy should have sent some word back to his home-folks, whatever happened.

Olga (with a quaver in her voice): Not a word—for seventeen long years.

Andrei: He was a worker, that boy. He always wanted to better himself.

Olga: He’ll never come back, now.

Andrei: I suppose it’s just as well, with nothing to come back to.

Olga: He may be on the far side of the world, having troubles of his own.

Andrei: Going hungry himself!

Olga: It may be worse than that. I get the feeling, in the night, that he’s dead. (She crosses to the stove and fixes the fire.) There wasn’t a mean bone in his body. If he was still alive he wouldn’t be forgetting his old mother.

Andrei (with accruing bitterness): I—I kind of hope he is dead. That’d leave him more of a man in our eyes. It’d mean he wanted to come back, and couldn’t.

Olga (in sharp-voiced revolt): I don’t want him dead. And God’ll punish you for wishing your own flesh and blood in the grave.

Andrei (with wearied hopelessness): I wish, sometimes, I was there myself.

Olga (forlornly optimistic): We’ll feel better after we’ve eaten.

Andrei: Eaten what?

Olga: These mashed turnips. With just a drop or two of pork fat to rich them up. (As her tremulous old hands add bits of wood to the fire the sound of a car engine comes from outside. This is followed by the sound of voices, cheerful and resonant.)

Andrei: What’s that?

Olga: Who’d be coming here?

Andrei (hobbling to the window): It’s a car. (As he peers out) It near backed into your empty chickenhouse.

Olga (as a hearty voice shouts “So long” outside): Listen!

Andrei: There—it’s started up again.

Olga (wonderingly, as the car sounds recede): Who’d be coming here?

Andrei: No one’s coming. It stopped all right. But there she goes, down the road again.

Olga: Everything looks so dead around here they must have felt the house was empty.

Andrei (studying the darkening sunset:) There’ll be frost tonight.

Olga: And the wild geese will soon be going over. That means winter’s on us again. (She crouches nearer the stove.) It makes me afraid, Andrei. I’m afraid of winter, with nothing—

(She is interrupted by a knocking on the door, a loud and boisterous knocking that is repeated as they stand motionless. Andrei, after a moment of hesitation, crosses and opens the door. He finds himself confronted by a Stranger, a wide-shouldered and brown-faced man of about thirty-five. This man is well-dressed, hearty and prosperous-looking. His prosperity is advertised by his heavy gold watch chain, to which a nugget of raw gold is appended, by his flashy tiepin, his heavy gold finger ring, by his well-fed body and his loud but not unkindly laugh as he pushes his way into the gloomy room, which he inspects with a quick and condoning eye.)

Stranger (with obviously assumed gruffness): Are you Andrei Zenikowski?

Andrei: Yes, sir. (Cringing back a little.) You’re not the tax collector?

Stranger: Me? I should say not. (He turns to the anxious-eyed old woman.) Are you Olga Zenikowski?

Olga: Yes, sir.

Stranger: Who came to this ice-bound wilderness from Lithmo, in Poland, forty-seven years ago?

Olga (bewildered by the official note): That we did, sir.

Andrei (thin-voiced and timorous): Why do you ask?

Stranger (laughing as he looks from one to the other): I wanted to make sure I had the right people.

Olga: For what reason, sir?

Stranger (with his mysterious laugh): For reason enough. And you’ll find out before the night’s over.

Andrei: But who are you?

Stranger (with his sustained careless heartiness): I’m just a visitor, folks, a visitor who’s going to stay with you overnight.

Andrei: We haven’t much here.

Stranger: So I see. (He tosses aside hat and coat and appraises the room.) You haven’t been getting along so well, I take it.

Olga: Andrei’s too old and weak to work his land.

(The Stranger’s face sobers as he studies the bent old man. Then, for reasons of his own, he once more breaks into laughter and rubs his hands together, almost gloatingly.)

Stranger: Of course he is.

Olga: And we can’t hire help. All we grew, this year, was turnips.

Stranger: Why isn’t there a son around here, a strong young fellow who could be helping you out when it’s needed?

Olga: We had a boy. But he went away.

Stranger: He went away, did he? How long ago was that?

Andrei: Seventeen long years ago.

Stranger: And never once showed back, in all that time. (He notes the half-empty meal box.) He’ll sure have some amends to make, that good-for-nothing runaway.

Olga (loyal to the last): He was as fine a lad as ever sat in a saddle. But he had his own way to make in the world.

(The other laughs at her bristle of animosity.)

Stranger (lifting the pot lid): And now, I suppose, he’s a millionaire or something, while you’re living on turnip mash.

Olga: I’ll thank you not to speak of my son harshly.

Stranger: Why shouldn’t I?

Olga: Because something tells me he’s dead and gone, this many a year.

Stranger: Don’t be too sure of that. (The Stranger, plainly toying with a situation from which he wreaks a perverse exultation, walks slowly up to the uncomprehending mother, who backs away a step or two.) What did that son of yours look like?

Olga: He was a spare lad, with a curl to his hair and a hungry look in his eye.

Stranger: Not a baldpate, like me? (He punches his own plump stomach.) And not well-fed, like this, eh?

Andrei: No, he had little meat on his bones.

Olga: He was as lean as a lath. And when he laughed you’d think it was a bird singing.

Stranger (with his repeated boisterous laugh): Not a bellow like mine?

Olga (registering her repugnance): No, not like yours.

(The Stranger takes out a cigar and lights it, deliberately illuminating his face in the match flare. But Olga refuses to look at the offending features. And still again the Stranger laughs.)

Stranger: What was the name of that boy of yours?

Olga: He was called Josef—Josef Casimir Zenikowski.

Stranger: Ha, now we’re getting somewhere.

(The old couple start, at that cry of pretended triumph, and exchange glances. They instinctively move closer to their visitor, whose smile dies away as the anxious old eyes study his face.)

Olga: Have you any word of him?

Stranger: Maybe I have. And maybe I haven’t.

Andrei: But somewhere, out in the world, you perhaps knew a Josef Zenikowski?

Stranger: Zenikowski. That was the name. And not an easy one to forget.

Olga (her voice shaking): Does that mean he’s alive?

Stranger (laughing at her agitation): As alive as I am.

Andrei (his own voice tremulous with excitement): Where is he? Where is our Josef?

Olga: My boy’s alive. (In an abruptly hardening voice.) Why didn’t he come to me?

Stranger: That’s a long story, lady. Supposing we have a bite of supper before we go into that.

Andrei: Yes, supper.

Olga (as dazed as Andrei, but not moving): Were you a friend of his?

Stranger: Me? A friend? (His laugh is self-accusatory.) No, just the opposite. There were times I pretty well hated him.

Olga: Why should you hate my son?

Stranger: Because all he seemed to think about was himself—himself and his own success.

Olga: Why shouldn’t he, with his way to make?

Stranger: And unmindful of the woman who brought him into the world.

Olga: I won’t have my son defamed by strangers.

Stranger: Didn’t he desert you seventeen long years ago?

Olga: He had his reasons for that, being restless, like all young lads.

Stranger: And you’d overlook it, if he came back?

Olga: He’s my son.

Stranger (with a new bitterness in his voice): A damned poor one, I’d say. (He stares about the gloomy shack.) You’re sure none too well fixed here. (He watches Olga lift the pot from the stove.) What are [you] going to give me for supper?

Andrei: I suppose you wouldn’t relish boiled turnips?

Stranger: Turnips? That’s stock feed.

Andrei: We had a duck. But it died on us.

Stranger (stunned by such destitution): And you had a son. But he died on you.

Olga: You said he was alive.

Stranger: Yes, he’s still alive, the selfish swine.

Andrei (his eyes on the other’s gold chain): You’re pretty well-to-do yourself, I take it?

Stranger: Who, me? Sure. I’m so well-heeled it’s a trouble to me. (His smile is broad as he taps his wallet pocket.) I’ve enough in here to buy the old homestead out, ten times over.

(Olga gasps and looks at Andrei.)

Andrei: I suppose you scarce know what it feels like to go hungry?

Stranger: Hungry? My trouble comes from eating too hearty. But I won’t be bothered that way tonight, I take it.

Andrei: We haven’t much. But what we have, you’re welcome to.

(The Stranger, in pacing about the shack, comes to the door, which he opens. He can be seen shaking his head as he stares out.)

Stranger: They’re just about gone, the old buildings. Stable roof caved in; cowshed falling apart; corral posts cut up for firewood!

Andrei (calling after him as he ventures farther out): Be careful of the well out there. The cover’s kind of rotted away.

Olga (as Andrei shuffles back to the stove side): Supposing he did fall in?

Andrei: What do you mean, woman?

Olga (quiet-voiced, as they stand face to face): I mean we wouldn’t have to starve like two badgers in a trap. (Her face hardens and her eyes become fixed.) Did you see what he had on him?

Andrei: What’s that to us?

Olga: We’d have money, Andrei. Money.

Andrei: He said it was a trouble to him.

Olga: Purse-proud and laughing, always laughing, at others in want!

Andrei: He even said he hated our son.

Olga: Who’s a world too good for the likes of him.

Andrei (peering out through the partly-open door): I wish to God the old well would get him.

Olga (huskily, with her eyes fixed on nothing): It wouldn’t be that way, Andrei.

Andrei: What he’s carrying around on his fat stomach would save us from starving. (He stops, sullen-faced, in front of the squirrel-gun on its wall pegs. He blinks up at it, hesitatingly.)

Olga: It wouldn’t be done that way, either.

Andrei: What are you trying to say?

Olga (in an almost crooning voice of conviction): No one would ever know.

Andrei: Know what?

Olga: How it came about?

Andrei (sensing the dark hint): Stop. I may be afraid of the bite of hunger. But I don’t want blood on my hands.

Olga (moving slowly closer to him): If it’s done right, there’d be no blood.

Andrei: I won’t listen to such talk.

Olga: Andrei, it’s our only hope.

Andrei: You’ve no right to put black thoughts like that in any man’s heart. I’m—I’m too near the end of my rope already.

Olga (in a musing monotone:) All the rest of our days made easy—made easy by what he claims is a burden to him.

Andrei: A man isn’t killed like a cockroach.

Olga: He wouldn’t be killed. It would just be a mistake.

Andrei: What mistake?

Olga: Folks make mistakes about mushrooms, sometimes, don’t they? The same mistake that duck of mine made.

Andrei (recoiling in horror): You don’t mean to give him death cups?

Olga: He’d be doing it himself, with his own hand. And nothing could come of it.

Andrei: Nothing come of it—with a dead man to explain away?

Olga: But in the dark, Andrei, we gathered the wrong kind. He ate them, without knowing. When we found out, it was too late.

Andrei: And after that?

Olga: After that, we’d have meat again, winter and summer.

Andrei: Quiet! He’s coming back.

(The rubicund Stranger comes in through the door and smiles pityingly at the old couple. Then he triumphantly displays a mushroom he has picked from the near-by prairie sod.)

Stranger: You old fogies talk about being short of food, with fine mushrooms like that all around you! How about a mess of them for supper?

Andrei: You like mushrooms?

Stranger: Better than turnip mash. Who wouldn’t?

Olga (as Andrei takes the mushroom and studies it): Is it the right kind? (To the Stranger). I don’t see so well since I lost my specks.

Stranger: I knew that, old girl, before you said it. (To Andrei) Of course it’s the right kind. There’s a Milky Way of them out there. And I want a good old-fashioned feed of them.

Olga (her eyes on the wavering Andrei): I can fry them, nice and rich, in what’s left of my pork fat.

(Andrei hesitates, then crosses to the shelf and takes down a pan. He goes slowly to the door and stops.)

Andrei: It’s getting darkish, but I’ll do what I can.

Olga: They grow best, remember, where the ducks used to feed.

(As Andrei shambles out the Stranger laughs and arrogantly seats himself at the head of the table. There he wags his head reminiscently and seems to be turning his secret over in his mind, like a squirrel with a nut. Olga, watching him, also seems to be turning over some secret knowledge.)

Stranger: I remember hearing your Josef talk about how the mushrooms used to pop up in the prairie sod every fall.

Olga: My Josef?

Stranger: He said he used to bring ’em in by the peck, when he was a boy here.

Olga (arrested in her task of lighting the lamp): When did he tell you that?

Stranger: When? Why, when he was off somewhere in foreign parts. He was a great hand for travel, was Josef.

Olga: Would you be knowing which way he headed when he left home?

Stranger: Sure. He high-tailed it up to Alaska and worked a tommy-rocker on the creeks. For three years he just about starved. Then he mosied down to Nevada, and went on to Mexico, and then had a try at South Africa.

Olga: Is he in Africa now?

Stranger: In Africa? (He looks at her and laughs.) No, I wouldn’t say he was in Africa.

Olga: Where is he?

Stranger: He might be closer than you imagine.

Olga: Then why doesn’t he come home to his old mother?

Stranger: You might find him changed.

Olga: He’s still my boy, bone of my bone.

Stranger: He was too yellow to remember that.

Olga: I won’t stand here and hear you call my son yellow.

Stranger (perversely pleased by her anger): That’s the spirit! (He leans back and smokes, contentedly studying the ragged old figure as it moves about the stove.) Tell me, what do you want most in all the world?

Olga (in the flat tones of hopelessness): Wanting doesn’t seem to get you things.

Stranger: But supposing this could come true.

Olga (staring out at the darkling horizon line): I’d want my boy back.

Stranger (in easy banter): Bad as he is?

Olga: He isn’t bad to me.

(At that the Stranger, suddenly sobered, stands up. He steps closer to Olga, apparently about to divulge his secret. His face softens and he is about to place a hand on the old woman’s shoulder. But the entrance of Andrei, with his heaping pan, prompts the prodigal to hold back his big moment.)

Andrei: I’ve got them.

Olga (quickly taking the pan and retreating with it): They’re fresh and firm and sweet as milk. (Her gaze locks with Andrei’s as she seats herself on the far side of the room, where she promptly cuts the betraying stem cups from the fungi, before throwing the tell-tale cup ends into the stove.)

Stranger (viewing Andrei’s melancholy slump): Why are you so mournful about giving me a meal?

Andrei: It shames me to think what I’m giving you.

Olga: Why do you say that?

Andrei: We’ve so little here.

Stranger: You may have more before morning, old boy.

Andrei: More—before morning? What does that mean?

Stranger: We’ll go into that after I’ve tucked some supper under my belt. (Then proddingly, as he smokes.) I suppose you’re soured against that runaway son of yours?

Andrei: I have no hard feelings against my son.

Stranger: What would you say if he were to step in through that door and say: Hello, folks, here I am.

Andrei (his eyes on Olga as she dumps the fungi in the frying pan): I don’t know what I’d say.

Stranger: But if he rolled home rich and said he was going to give you anything your heart desired, what’d you ask for?

Andrei (tonelessly): I don’t know. Enough meat and bread to live on, I suppose.

Stranger: But if that were only the beginning? What else?

Andrei: I don’t know. Tobacco, I guess. It’s seven months now since I tasted tobacco.

Stranger: Hell, have a cigar. Have half a dozen.

Andrei (listlessly refusing): My hankering’s for pipe-twist. I never favored cigars any more than—than I favor those mushrooms. Turnip mash is good enough for me.

Stranger (sniffing the frying fungi): They sure smell good to this old-timer.

Olga: They’re all for you. Andrei, get that loaf heel out of the box. I’ll toast a slice or two for the gentleman.

Stranger: But how about you two?

Olga: We’ll make out on turnips. We’re used to them.

Stranger (with a hand-thump on the table end): But I’ll bet that’s the last boiled turnip ever goes down your gullet. (He leans back, laughs again, and looks about the room.) We’re going to change all this.

Andrei: How’ll it be changed.

Stranger: Just wait and see.

(Olga’s face is set as she heaps the fried fungi on a crockery plate and deliberately places it before the visitor, who disregards her as she washes her hands at a tin basin and carefully dries them and smells them and again wipes them on her worn towel. On the remoter table end she places two plates of turnip mash. There is tenseness in each old figure as the Stranger sniffs at his meal, takes up a fork, and begins to eat.)

Stranger (with a new geniality): And now I’ll tell you what I’m going to do for this.

Andrei (his eyes on the poison plate): For what?

Stranger (waving his fork aloft): Oh, let’s say for this fine meal. Look at me, you two. Look at me good and hard. (He moves the lamp closer to his face.) See anything?

Olga: Why should we?

Stranger: Nothing funny about this old map of mine?

Andrei: Not—not yet.

(The Stranger leans back and laughs still again. But his laugh dies away as he munches a larger forkful of the fungi. The two pairs of old eyes always watching him see disappointment on his face.)

Stranger: Kind of funny how things change. These don’t taste so good as they did when I was a little shaver. Kind of peppery.

Olga: That’s my pork fat, maybe. It’s not so fresh as it might be.

Stranger: Got any butter?

Olga: Butter? We haven’t had butter in this house since the cow died last September.

(The two old people make a pretense of eating their turnip mash. But their watchful eyes are on the Stranger. They lean forward when he pushes back his plate and lifts a hand to his forehead.)

Stranger: I—I don’t feel right. (He struggles with his collar, to loosen it.) That’s queer. Must have—must have waited too long for this meal.

Olga (as he starts to his feet): Where are you going?

Stranger (groping his uncertain way toward the door): I—I want some fresh air. (He staggers out. The old couple sit waiting, without moving. It’s not until the sound of groans comes in to them that they exchange glances. Olga gets up, steadies herself, and crosses to the window, through which she peers.)

Olga: He’s fallen. He’s down on the ground. He’s trying to crawl back to the door. There; he’s still again.

Andrei (in a hollow voice): It won’t take long. (He looks at the half-eaten plateful of fungi.) Death cups!

Olga (still at the window): He’s not moving any more.

Andrei: Dead! He’s dead.

Olga (crossing and confronting him): What are you so craven about? Go out and drag him in to the light.

Andrei: I—I haven’t the strength.

Olga: Then I’ll do it myself.

(As she tugs at the body, just outside the door, Andrei goes out and joins her. Together they drag the Stranger in, leaving him full-length on the floor as they sit back and recover their breath. Then slowly and stealthily they both crawl toward him.)

Andrei (unlooping the watch and chain from the body): It’s gold, solid gold.

Olga (tugging off the finger ring): We’ll live well, this winter.

Andrei (emptying the victim’s pockets): Bills! Bills and silver. Ha, that’ll bring us as grand a cow as ever cropped grass.

Olga (shaking with excitement): Find his wallet. He said he had enough to buy this farm, ten times over.

Andrei (unearthing the wallet from an inner pocket): It’s a fat one. Bank notes. There’s so many they—they scare me. (His cackle is born of hysteria.) This shack’ll house no more half-empty bellies. (He sits back, stricken by a new thought.) We killed him too soon.

Olga: We didn’t kill him. He et the wrong mushrooms.

Andrei: But we should have waited until he gave us further word of our boy. He might have told us where to look for Josef.

Olga: He said he hated our Josef.

Andrei: But he seemed to know of his whereabouts.

Olga (pointing to papers beside the wallet): What’re those letters? Letters ought to tell us something; where he comes from, and what his name is.

Andrei (peering at the letters): I can’t make ’em out. (He carries them to the lamp light.)

Olga (peering over his bent shoulder): Wouldn’t that be his name, stamped there on the wallet flap?

Andrei (holding wallet to lamp and peering closer): Even that’s in gold. (Slowly and uncomprehendingly he begins to spell out the letters.) J-o-s-e-p-h Z-e-n. . .

Olga (catching at his shoulder): What was that?

(Andrei, instead of answering, tremblingly takes up one of the letters and studies out the inscription on the envelope. His voice, when he speaks, is the voice of doom.)

Andrei (spelling): Z-e-n-i-k-o-w-s-k-i.

Olga (as horror creeps into her face): Joseph Zenikowski!

(Andrei looks at the body on the floor. Then he looks at his wife. Olga, in turn, slowly duplicates that action. Then her body begins to shake. Andrei’s head droops.)

Andrei: It’s our boy—our Josef.

Olga (almost in a scream): That isn’t my boy—that hulk.

Andrei: He was your boy. (He stares down at the Stranger.) But we killed him. We—we didn’t know.

Olga (crossing to body and kneeling): Leave me alone with him.

Andrei (nodding vacantly): Yes, alone with him. (He rises shakily to his feet.) There’s nothing left.

(While the mother, engrossed in her grief, bends over the body, the father falteringly crosses to the squirrel-gun, takes it down, and tests its length against his breast-bone. Then he nods and goes slowly out through the shack door. Olga tenderly restores the watch, the wallet, the letters, the loose silver and bills, to their rightful owner. Then she stoops and kisses his brow, with a murmured: “My Josef”. She has trouble in getting to her feet. As she stands swaying, supporting herself on the table end, a gun shot sounds from outside.)

Olga (nodding her understanding): There’s nothing left.

(She looks slowly about the shack, then staggers to Josef’s chair. She sinks into it. Her eyes fall on the half-plateful of death cups. She repeats the words: “Death cups,” and draws the plate closer. Then she reaches for the fork, piles it high with the poison, and lifts it to her lips. Still grimly resolute, she takes another mouthful, and another. Her first spasm of pain is cut short by the quick fall of the curtain.)

THE OYSTER

Smithers, a sad-eyed butler, enters, right, and hesitatingly inspects his master. Lemuel, reaching for his pipe, sees the butler but ignores him.

Smithers: Sorry, sir, but—

Lemuel: Shut the window there, Smithers. That night air smells damp.

Smithers (sadly crossing to window): It’s quite balmy, sir, outside.

Lemuel: Well, I prefer firelight to fog. Shut the window.

Smithers (resignedly): Very good, sir.

Lemuel (again over his book): And now get out.

Smithers (still patiently respectful): I’m sorry, sir, but Master Alan is waiting to see you.

Lemuel (still reading): Well, I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to see him or anybody else.

Smithers: He said, sir, it was urgent.

Lemuel: Urgent my eye! All I ask is to be let alone. So get out. And tell that young whipper-snapper to get out too. (He resumes his reading. Smithers, at the door, steps aside to let Alan Chambers enter, then goes out, quietly but triumphantly closing the door behind him.)

Alan (with a lightness obviously forced): Hello, Uncle Lem. Am I disturbing you?

Lemuel: You are. (He continues to read.)

Alan: I’m sorry. (But he fails to retreat.) I was rather hoping that you could help me.

Lemuel (grunting): Want money, I suppose? So you’re in debt again?

Alan (coolly seating himself in a fireside armchair): It’s worse than that, Uncle Lem.

Lemuel (indifferently): Well, what’s happened this time?

Alan (grimly, after a pause): I’m in love.

Lemuel (reaching for his book): Then you’d better get out of love. Only fools fall in love.

Alan: Then I’m the king of them all. And you’re right, in a way. For a man does feel like a fool when he loves a woman and she doesn’t love him back.

Lemuel: Ha, so you’re not loved back! Well, I’m told that such things occur now and then. And someday, when you know women as I know them, you’ll realize they’re not worth worrying over.

Alan: But you don’t know what it means. Uncle Lem. You’ve never been in love.

Lemuel: And I never intend to be.

Alan: You don’t understand what it’s like, really to care for a woman, to want her more than anything else in this world, and then see someone else come and take her away from you.

Lemuel (wincing from some secret blow): Don’t I? (Resuming his mask of acerbity.) I’ve lived here for twenty years without a woman around, and I don’t think I’m any the worse for it. And you’ll feel the same, twenty years from now.

Alan: But you don’t understand. You’ve never been through it. Why, I might as well jump in the river as try to go on like this. I simply can’t face the thought of losing her, of trying to live without her.

Lemuel: Without who? Who’s the chocolate seraph?

Alan: The what?

Lemuel: Who’s the girl you’ve gone silly over? The beautiful angel who’s inspiring you to step off the river end of a freight wharf?

Alan: It’s Alice, Alice Millar. She and her Aunt Catherine came hack from Rome last April and I met them at Atlantic City and then later at Aiken and bumped into them again at Newport and when Alice went west to Pasadena I joined them there and then we went on to San Diego together and came home by way of the Panama Canal.

Lemuel: Kindly do not be so annoyingly geographical. I’m still in the dark as to just who your incomparable Alice is. And also the itinerant Cook’s-tourist-lady you speak of as her Aunt Catherine.

Alan: Why, you must remember Catherine Norwood. She said once that you were very great friends, quite a number of years ago.

Lemuel (with protective harshness): Who did?

Alan: Mrs. Norwood. Alice has lived with her, practically, since her husband died three years ago.

Lemuel (blandly circuitous): Then Alice, I assume, is a widow.

Alan: No, Alice is only a girl of nineteen or twenty. It’s Mrs. Norwood who is the widow. She’s doing for Alice just about what you’re doing for me, educating her and bringing her up—and standing behind her like a rock, when she’s in trouble.

(Lemuel winces.)

Lemuel (with unexpected bitterness): Then you mustn’t expect too much from your incomparable Alice.

Alan: Why do you say that?

Lemuel: Because my knowledge of that family, although neither recent nor intimate, tells me they’re a thin-blooded tribe.

Alan (startled): But—but that’s just what Alice has been saying about us. She says she’s afraid we’re fishy.

Lemuel: Fishy?

Alan: Yes, she thinks I’m cold, that I’m self-immured and clammy. She seems to feel that I haven’t any fire, that I can’t surrender to an emotion and let it carry me on to the mountaintops of abandonment.

Lemuel: And what does she want you to do when you get up on the mountaintops?

Alan: She wants me to make love to her the way this other fellow does.

Lemuel: What other fellow?

Alan: That long-haired Clarence Casella. He’s been filling her head with a lot of rhapsodical rot and making her think that because I can’t articulate certain feelings I can’t possibly possess them.

Lemuel: My personal conviction is that a woman should always go slow with a glib talker.

Alan: That’s what I tried to tell her, that still waters run deep. But she says this Casella chap sweeps her off her feet. He’s so fiery he makes her forget things. And someday she’s going to forget that I’m alive.

Lemuel (testily): Well, you’re not a dummy. You’ve got a tongue of your own, haven’t you?

Alan: It doesn’t seem to work the way I want it to.

Lemuel: It wags freely enough when you’re trying to argue a little extra allowance out of your fishlike guardian.

Alan: But it’s all so different with love, Uncle Lem. You don’t seem to have much chance with a woman if you can’t sweep her off her feet.

Lemuel: Well, what have I got to do with sweeping your Alice off her feet? You don’t expect me to be the kitchen broom in this dilemma, do you?

Alan: Uncle Lem, that’s exactly what I’d like you to be.

Lemuel: A broom?

Alan: Not exactly that. But, you see, Alice feels you’re the one person who’s molded my character and made me what I am.

Lemuel (with a snort of disdain): That girl’s got her nerve, holding me responsible for an empty-headed idiot who happens to be my nephew.

Alan: But she claims that families run true to form. She even says we’re terribly alike, that I’m fashioning myself after you. And I don’t want her to think we’re all oysters.

Lemuel: Oysters?

Alan: I’m sorry, but oyster was the word she used. She said you were shut up in your own selfish interests, and, like any other old bachelor, you merely took what life brought you and never gave anything out, and, like a Blue Point, you wouldn’t open up until you were dead.

Lemuel: So I’m an oyster, am I!

Alan: She doesn’t know you, of course. She hasn’t an inkling of how kind and generous you really are and what you’ve done for me in the last seven or eight years.

Lemuel (suspiciously): And what do you want me to do at the present juncture?

Alan: I want you to show Alice how mistaken she is.

Lemuel: About you being a bivalve?

Alan: No, sir, about both of us. I want you to show your better nature and sweep her prejudices away. I want you to prove that you’re neither selfish nor shellfish.

Lemuel: Just a minute. In my time it was the habit of young men to carry on their own love-making.

Alan: They still do, Uncle Lem. But with Alice the breaks are all against me.

Lemuel (relenting a little): Haven’t you ever kissed her?

Alan (proving himself a poor liar): Oh, no, sir.

Lemuel: Huh! Then why the devil didn’t you?

Alan: I—I think I was afraid to.

Lemuel: Afraid to? You were in love with a girl and you never had the gumption to kiss her? By Gad, there must be something fishy about this family, after all. Have you ever written her a love letter?

Alan: I’ve written to her, of course, but she complains that my notes are always cold and formal, that they never glow like Clarence’s. She says they sound exactly as though they’d been written by a self-immured old oyster who’d never given a thought to anything but his own selfish comfort.

Lemuel: And that, I suppose, means me. So I’m merely a Blue Point to your beautiful Alice! Well, I may not have spent my life in an Oriental harem, but I’d like to show that self-opinionated young woman that I’ve still got a little red blood under my calcareous imitation of a mollusk. Hah, what does she know about me or my life? Why, I’d—I’d like to write her a love letter that’d make her back hair stand up and give her gooseflesh for the rest of the day!

Alan (with eagerness): Could you do it, Uncle Lem?

Lemuel: Do what?

Alan: Show her you’ve got it in you.

Lemuel: Got what in me?

Alan: The divine fire, the glow that every girl looks for in the man she loves.

Lemuel: And how am I to make that spectacular revelation?

Alan: By being nice to Alice and her aunt. I’m going to bring them up here and—

Lemuel: Oh, no, you’re not! If this is a fish pond, I prefer keeping it free of women.

Alan: But it’s too late, Uncle Lem. They’re on their way, already. And if you’ll only be—be sympathetic and understanding with Mrs. Norwood when she comes, it’ll make everything so much easier for me.

Lemuel (with grim decisiveness): I won’t have Kitty Norwood in this house.

Alan: That doesn’t sound like old friends. Why not?

Lemuel: For distinctly personal reasons.

Alan: Then Alice is right, after all. You aren’t much interested in other people.

Lemuel: I’ve the right of deciding just what woman I have to be sympathetic and understanding with.

Alan: But she’s a lovely woman, Uncle Lem. She’s so kindly and gracious that one can’t help liking her, once one understands her. I thought she was a bit standoffish, at first, but it’s only because she’s had some secret sorrow in her life that seems to have saddened her. She’s a wonder.

Lemuel: Then you’d better make love to her, yourself. From what I know of her kind, she’d probably enjoy it.

Alan: But I’m in love with Alice.

Lemuel: This is the third time, as I remember it, that you’ve mentioned that fact.

Alan: And you’re not willing to help me win her?

Lemuel: You’re better off without her.

Alan: And live like an oyster, never—

Lemuel: Don’t bring any more oysters into this discussion.

Alan: But this is playing right into their hands. It’s proving that what they say is right. It’s advertising the fact that we are a fishy lot.

Lemuel: I’m no fishier than the next man. I may never have been trapped into matrimony, but I’ve still got a human emotion or two in my carcass. And leading something in twenty yards of tulle to the altar, I’ve noticed, doesn’t always give you a stranglehold on courtly behavior.

Alan: But surely it’s a help, learning to get along in double harness.

Lemuel: I happen to prefer single harness. But if I were fool enough to kiss freedom good-by, if I were goat enough to fall in love with a girl, I’d wake up to the fit and proper way of telling her so. If I hadn’t the gumption to take her in my arms and say it to her, face to face, I’d have the brains to sit down and give it to her in black and white.

Alan: That’s not so easy as it sounds.

Lemuel: It may not be easy for a milk-and-water numskull. But you’re a Chambers. (He stops his rug-pacing to confront his nephew.) If I were in your shoes, young man, I’d mighty soon put her wise. I’d let her know how I felt about it all. I’d—I’d write her a letter that would sweep her off her feet.

Alan: Then for heaven’s sake show me how to do it.

Lemuel (ceasing to stride back and forth and going to his desk): By Gad, I will. (He reaches for pen and paper.) We’ll see if there isn’t a pearl or two of eloquence left in the old oyster.

Alan (standing over him with a triumphant smile): Can you make it sound as though it came straight from the heart, as though we meant every word of it?

Lemuel: Get away from me. This is my job.

(Alan goes down stage with a book, where he seats himself in a wing chair, holding the book upside down. Lemuel dips his pen in the ink, hesitates, sits back frowning, and remains silent, a faraway look on his face. He stoops over the paper again, but the words will not come.)

Lemuel (aside, in dismay): Then I am an oyster!

Alan: Did you speak, sir?

Lemuel: Shut up. Read your book and leave me alone. (Seeing Alan apparently deep in his book, the older man stealthily unlocks a drawer of his desk. From it he takes out two packages of letters, tied with blue ribbon. He sighs as he quietly unties them and somewhat guiltily looks at first one close-written sheet and then another. His face softens and he sighs again. Then, after a moment of silence, he begins to write, murmuring aloud as he does so.) Darling . . . I shall always remember the halo of your hair . . . like an April evening, after rain . . . your body is so beautiful. . . . I remember it, like the scent of lilac blossoms drifting on the moonlight air. (He stops and consults another of the letters.) Rapture and moonlight and you in my arms . . . that whispered word, as quiet as rain . . . and the moonlight on your lips. (He sighs as he looks up and absently repeats.) The moonlight on your lips . . . when your golden loveliness seems to draw an amber veil about the sleeping world. . . . (He is bent low over his letter when Smithers enters. Alan, seeing him, motions for silence, tiptoes to his side and whispers in his ear. Smithers smiles sadly and goes out again. Alan signals through the open door and Alice Millar slips quietly in, carrying a spray of lilac bloom. She looks at Lemuel, deep in his writing, and nods understandingly. Alan, keeping one eye on his uncle, takes her in his arms and kisses her. He repeats the kiss, lingeringly, and is reaching for another when Alice silently pushes him out through the door. Alice straightens her hat, advances tentatively, and essays a small cough. Lemuel, looking up, blinks at her from another world.)

Alice (archly): I don’t believe you know who I am.

Lemuel (rising and bowing stiffly): I haven’t that honor.

Alice: And I don’t believe you know why I’m bothering you. (She holds out her hand, which he takes grumpily, as he frowningly studies her face.)

Alice (embarrassed by that scrutiny): I’ve brought you in some of your own lilacs.

Lemuel (acidly, as she places them in an empty vase): That’s very generous of you.

Alice: Some men don’t seem to remember they have a garden, until a woman reminds them of it.

Lemuel: And to bring it home to the stolid oxen, you have to break their lilac branches for them—as lightly as you break their hearts.

Alice: It does men good to have their hearts broken. They need it.

Lemuel: Do they, now?

Alice: It keeps them human. (Site holds up her left hand, showing a diamond engagement ring.) And that’s what I wanted to speak to you about. About Alan.

Lemuel (none too encouragingly): Well, what about Alan?

Alice: You see, he wants to marry me, but—

Lemuel (with rough impatience): Is that his ring? (Alice, plainly not used to being barked at, stares at the ring, frowns, and looks back at Lemuel.)

Alice: No, it isn’t.

Lemuel: Then who’s is it?

Alice (tauntingly): It’s Clarence’s—Clarence Casella’s. And that’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about.

Lemuel: I’m not interested in Casella, Clarence Casella, or any other member of the Casella family.

Alice: But you’re interested in Alan?

Lemuel: Now and then, as his guardian, I’m painfully compelled to be.

Alice (crestfallen): I’m afraid Aunt Kitty was right, after all.

Lemuel: She probably was.

Alice (her patience worn thin): She warned me you’d be a crusty old crab.

Lemuel: So it’s a crab now! (He snorts.) It’s singular how this family of mine approximates to the crustaceans.

Alice (still able to smile at his acerbity): But I wouldn’t believe it. And I still don’t believe it. I think you’re like Alan: you shrink back from showing your real feelings.

Lemuel: I’ve never made it a practice to parade my feelings before strangers.

Alice: She’s not a stranger.

Lemuel: Who isn’t?

Alice: Aunt Kitty. She knew you twenty years ago. She knew you when you were young and dashing and—

Lemuel: And before I had one foot in the grave!

Alice: And she told me that long, long ago you were the type of man who could sweep a woman off her feet.

Lemuel: Did she, now? Well, I’ve given up the practice of sweeping women off their feet, as you phrase it. And what’s more, I gave it up long, long ago.

Alice: That’s what Aunt Kitty said. And that’s what makes it seem so hopeless for Alan.

Lemuel: I wasn’t aware of any dark cloud hanging over my nephew.

Alice: But you’re making him into the same sort of woman-hater that you’ve been for the last quarter of a century. The poor boy has never had a chance. It’s no wonder he’s dumb before the most wonderful and beautiful thing that can come into a person’s life.

Lemuel: Is he?

Alice: Can’t you see it?

Lemuel (covering up his half-completed letter): I’ve never been a party to his love affairs.

Alice: You have, without knowing it. You’ve been a ghost in the background, chilling his blood. You’ve muted the strings of his soul. You’ve made him forget how to soar. You’ve let men like Clarence Casella, men who aren’t afraid of their emotions, come between Alan and his happiness.

Lemuel: You know, I’m getting just a little fed up on being dragged about as a public exhibition of a failure in life. Alan is not only my ward but also my nephew and I’ve given a good deal of thought to his future. I want to see him happy and successful. And I’m willing to do anything that’s humanly possible to see him that way.

Alice: I wish I could believe that.

Lemuel (bluntly): Do you intend to marry Alan?

Alice (hesitating): I don’t think so. I don’t really know yet. You see, it all depends on Aunt Kitty.

Lemuel: Why on your Aunt Kitty?

Alice: Aunt Kitty is as anxious for my happiness as you are for Alan’s. But she seems to think that you’re surly and self-opinionated and self-immured and that you’re making Alan that way. I don’t believe it, myself. I can see that your eyes are kind, even when you frown. And something tells me that under your mask of coldness you’re really a gracious and warmhearted gentleman.

Lemuel: And you’d like me to confirm that ghostly suspicion.

Alice: You’ll have to, I’m afraid. Most men would jump at the chance.

Lemuel: And what must I do?

Alice: I want you to show Aunt Kitty that she’s wrong, that life hasn’t made you into a mollusk.

Lemuel: Oyster, I believe, is the designated variety.

Alice (ignoring him in her earnestness): I want you to be awfully nice to Aunt Kitty, even though it hurts. I want you to make her feel that you’ve got a little tenderness and romance in your make-up. You see, Aunt Kitty hasn’t been very happy herself. As you probably know, her marriage didn’t turn out the way it should have. And she doesn’t want to see history repeating itself with me.

Lemuel (with purely protective flippancy): And you’re afraid I’ll throw her downstairs when she comes up here?

Alice: No, I’m afraid you’ll be politely frigid, that you’ll be cold and chilling when you ought to be kindly and sympathetic.

Lemuel: So for your sake I’m to breathe sweet nothings into your Aunt Kitty’s shell-like ear?

Alice: No, it’s more for Alan’s sake. And it shouldn’t be hard. For Aunt Kitty is one of the loveliest women I’ve ever known.

Lemuel: So I’ve been told, for the second time. And what’s to happen after I’ve jumped through your paper hoops of emotions?

Alice: Nothing will happen, nothing at all, except that you’ll prove you’re not an oyster.

Lemuel (with an angry fist-thump on the table end): Will you kindly keep shellfish out of this discussion.

Alice: That’s exactly what I’m asking for. Only I want it kept out of everything. For if you can show you’re human and warmblooded, just for once, it won’t leave Aunt Kitty a leg to stand on.

Lemuel: I have no desire to deprive your Aunt Kitty of her legs.

Alice: I want you to deprive her of her delusions. Then she’ll simply have to acknowledge that she’s been wrong.

Lemuel: I’ve never seen a woman do that in my life.

Alice: But you will today; I know you will, if you only play your cards right. I mean you must be intelligent and consistent, until Alan and I come into the room. We’ll be outside somewhere, and—

Lemuel: Just a moment, my dear. Are you trying to tell me that I’m going to indulge in these erotic gymnastics while you two young people are hiding behind the furniture and wagging your heads over every respectably polite word I confront your oyster-hating aunt with?

Alice: Of course not, you old dear. We’ll be outside, in the conservatory. And we won’t think of coming in until it’s all over. Then— (She breaks off, seeing Smithers, who has entered and stands waiting.)

Lemuel: What is it, Smithers?

Smithers: It’s Mrs. Norwood, sir. She was to call for Miss Millar.

(Lemuel stiffens, swallows hard, showing his embarrassment. He even starts for the door, as though to escape, but Alice pushes him back and nods to Smithers.)

Alice: I’ll be here, Smithers. Bring her up, please.

(Smithers goes out. Alice studies Lemuel’s face, suddenly putting her arms about him and murmuring, “Be nice to her.” Before Lemuel can recover from the shock of this unexpected embrace Alice slips across the room. But Lemuel, for some reason, has lost both his self-assurance and his acidulous expression. He looks singularly childlike, in fact, as he blinks rather hopelessly after the departing Alice.)

Lemuel (in a huskily reminding voice): You said you’d be here, remember.

Alice (smilingly, from the doorway): Not until I’m needed, old dear.

Lemuel (as though to call her back): Alice! Alice!

(But Alice slips away. And Lemuel, breathing deep, retreats until he stands with his back to the wall, his face working. He once more has control of himself, however, as Smithers enters and quietly announces: “Mrs. Norwood.” Kitty, in very chic widow’s weeds, steps into the room. She stops short, arrested by Lemuel’s frowning face.)

Kitty: They told me Alice was here. I’m sorry.

Lemuel (inadequately): How-do-you-do?

Kitty (smiling sadly as she slowly crosses to him): It’s been a long time, Lemuel.

Lemuel (with timorous shake of her proffered hand, which he drops like a hot cake): It—it has, madam.

Kitty: Perhaps I’ve made a mistake, in coming here.

Lemuel (stiffly): On the contrary. Won’t—won’t you sit down?

(Kitty, instead of seating herself, crosses to the fireplace, her gaze circling the room until it rests again on the unhappy Lemuel.)

Kitty (her smile a courageous one): It would have been better, I’m afraid, if I hadn’t come to stir up old memories.

Lemuel: What’s been dead and buried for twenty years, madam, isn’t easily stirred up.

Kitty: It’s what’s still alive that’s so hard to manage, isn’t it?

Lemuel: It is, Catherine.

Kitty (softly): You used to call me Kitty—

Lemuel: I’m afraid I did many foolish things—twenty years ago.

Kitty (sinking into a chair beside the desk): I did, too, Lemuel. And I think I’ve paid for my mistake. It’s—it’s a terrible thing to marry the wrong man.

Lemuel (acidly): It always is the wrong man, I’ve been given to understand.

Kitty (earnestly): That’s why I’m so disturbed about Alice.

Lemuel (glad to reach solid ground): What about this young jackanapes who’s so interested in your Alice?

Kitty: You mean Alan?

Lemuel: No, I don’t mean Alan. I mean that Casella chap who can burst into song every time he looks at a young lady’s eyelash.

Kitty: Oh, Clarence! Clarence is an adorable boy. He’s so fiery and impulsive and expresses himself so well. He seems to have swept her off her feet.

Lemuel (after wincing at that over-familiar phrase): Then being swept off your feet, I take it, is the first essential to matrimonial felicity?

Kitty: Not always, Lemuel. But what is the use of a beautiful love if it can’t be expressed in a beautiful way? (She sighs.) That’s why I’m so afraid for Alan.

Lemuel (jealously): What’s the matter with Alan?

Kitty: He seems so reluctant to let himself go, if you get what I mean. He lets Clarence outshine him. There’s a reason for it, of course. For Clarence’s father was an Italian. And his Latin blood keeps asserting itself.

Lemuel: They’re a loose-tongued lot, those wops. They’re usually long on talk, I’ve found, and short on performance.

Kitty: Clarence will lose some of his ardor, of course. Men seem to do that, as they grow older.

Lemuel: Slowly but surely changing, as I understand it, from Lotharios into Lynn Havens?

Kitty: I’m afraid so, if they’re blind enough to let life rob them of everything that’s best in living.

(Lemuel looks at her, shamed by her gentle earnestness. He becomes less abrupt.)

Lemuel: You’re right, Kitty. But we’re too cowardly to admit it, as a rule. We make a mess of life, and go on marking time, and protect our wilting pride with bad manners, the same as a rose protects itself with thorns.

Kitty: And all the time you’re deceiving nobody but yourself.

Lemuel: Then you don’t consider me a clam?

Kitty: I could never do that, Lemuel, with all those lovely memories of the lovely things you’ve said and done. Men, I suppose, forget. But a woman never forgets.

Lemuel (stirred in spite of himself): It—it seems a long time ago.

Kitty: It was a long time ago. And yet, in one way, it seems like yesterday.

(Softly, from the other room, come the sounds of a Victrola. It is playing the Merry Widow Waltz.)

You haven’t changed as much as I thought.

Lemuel (irritably listening to the music): I wish that young pup would leave my phonograph alone.

Kitty (also listening, but with more tender memories): We used to dance to that, once, in the old days.

Lemuel (bitterly): When I didn’t quite succeed in sweeping you off your feet. (He wheels about and strides to the window, his back turned to her.)

Kitty: You did, Lemuel, but it didn’t lead to either matrimony or happiness. (She speaks quietly and without rancor.) I don’t know what it was. But something went wrong, just as we seemed at the gateway of our Eden. We hesitated at our Great Divide—and went different ways.

Lemuel (wheeling about on her): You know what went wrong, Kitty, as well as I do. It was that cursed pride of yours.

Kitty (with a blink of indignation): Of mine?

Lemuel (as he studies her face): Oh, well, call it mine, if you insist. But you know as well as I do it was a damn-fool quarrel between two young hotheads that turned the trick. It sent the whole applecart over, when one timely word could have kept it on an even keel.

Kitty: But instead of that word we let coldness and silence stand between us.

Lemuel: And when we would have spoken, when we should have spoken, it was too late.

Kitty: Yes; it was too late. And surely that ought to be a lesson to us now. Words . . . words . . . they are so precious to women!

Lemuel (swallowing hard as he recalls his duty): And now, of course, we’ve got these young people to remember.

Kitty: Yes, we must think of their happiness.

Lemuel (finding it hard): They’re worrying about my being a clam. They seem to think a post-mortem would produce a first-class grindstone where my heart ought to be. (He straightens his indignant shoulders.) I may not be so young as I once was, but I’m not an entire stranger to halfway human emotions. And we may as well let them know it right now.

Kitty: We may as well let them?

Lemuel: I’m afraid you’ll have to help me.

Kitty: Help you in what?

Lemuel: In proving Alan isn’t an extinct volcano. In showing that the Chambers family still has a little fire somewhere under the ashes.

Kitty: I know the fire is there.

Lemuel: But that dull-witted niece of yours doesn’t. And this is a command performance to prove how dead wrong she is.

Kitty: A command performance of what?

Lemuel: Of how a human bivalve can open up and make love when he has to.

Kitty (rather at sea about it all): Make love? To whom?

Lemuel (grimly): To you, my dear.

Kitty: I don’t care for jokes about things that are sacred.

Lemuel (crossing to the window): I don’t myself. But these dunderheads seem to be expecting it. (He returns to her, smiling at her solemnly) It’s a lot of nonsense, of course, but I’m willing to suffer, if it’s going to help two young featherheads get together as they want to. And I’m rather tired of being told that the only thing I can think about is myself.

Kitty (after studying him): I’d rather you wouldn’t.

Lemuel: You suspect I couldn’t get away with it?

Kitty: It would stir up too many old memories.

Lemuel: Weren’t some of them happy ones?

Kitty: Too happy, I’m afraid.

(They both listen to the music, looking out the moonlit window.)

Lemuel: Do you remember that night in the garden at Harwood? It must have been in May, for the lilacs were in bloom. And there was a moon, a wonderful golden moon just coming up over the misty hills.

Kitty (softly): I remember.

Lemuel: And instead of coming in through the gate, I went round by the river and climbed the wall. Then I crept up through the shrubbery and threw gravel at your window. You opened the window and I called up to you. At first I thought you weren’t going to come down. But you came, when I’d almost given up hoping. You slipped out through the music room door and came down the grape arbor and past the Persian lilac bush and when you saw me waiting beside the sundial you stopped in the moonlight. You were all in white, and I was afraid to speak to you, at first, you looked so much like an angel from another world.

Kitty (speaking very softly): Yes, I remember. Someone inside began to play the same old Merry Widow Waltz. We could just hear it, through the trees. And we could smell the lilacs in bloom. And everything was bathed in moonlight.

Lemuel: And I took you in my arms, and I could feel your heart beating against mine.

Kitty (lost in her memories): We didn’t speak, for a long time. And when we did, it was only in whispers. (She realizes that his arms are about her and makes an effort to draw away.) And do you remember how the wet grass ruined a perfectly good pair of slippers?

Lemuel: I only remember that it was the happiest hour in my life. I was afraid to kiss you, at first, for you seemed to belong to another world. But you put a hand on my shoulder, you remember, and when you looked up at me I could see the moonlight on your lips. That gave me the courage to crush you in my arms and kiss you, kiss you again and again.

Kitty (as she draws away from him and looks about dazed): It almost seems that we were living that night over again. I can see the moonlight over the garden. I can smell lilac blossoms. I hear the same music, the same music and your voice sounding through it.

Lemuel: We are living it over again. It’s the same lilac scent and the same moonlight and the same voice struggling to tell you of a love too great for utterance.

Kitty: But the dead past must bury its dead.

Lemuel: It isn’t dead. For those twenty lost years don’t count. Time ceased when you were swept away from me. Everything stopped when you went out of my life. And now that you’ve come back to it I know I’m alive again. We are two lovers, in the moonlight, crying out for our share of earthly happiness. For I know that I love you now, as I always have loved you, as no woman was ever loved before.

Kitty (faintly): Don’t. Don’t.

Lemuel: Look at me.

Kitty: I can’t! And I know this can’t go on.

Lemuel: It can’t go on? Why, I’m only getting started.

Kitty: Then it’s time for us both to remember. Your voice is as soft as ever, Lemuel, and you say everything with the old fire. But we both know it’s only make-believe. It’s all play-acting. We’re going through these empty gestures to deceive two young people who are still in doubt about their own love. But we mustn’t deceive ourselves.

Lemuel: Those gestures didn’t seem so empty to me. And I was thinking precious little about your young people.

Kitty: But it’s all an empty farce. And it’s costing too much.

Lemuel: Then it’s time to think what pride and silence cost us.

Kitty (freeing herself from his clasp): It’s nearly twenty years, Lemuel. Twenty years is a long time.

Lemuel: But through all those years you have been close to me. Day by day I’ve thought of you, and night by night some memory of you has nested warm in my heart. You were lost to me, in one way, but all the while I kept you close. I had that one sacred memory.

Kitty (sorrowfully studying him): That’s easy to say, my dear, but in all those years there was never a message, never a kind word from you.

Lemuel: But, good Gad, Kitty, you belonged to another man. You gave me the mitten and married another man. And I’m no modern Casanova going around breaking up other people’s homes.

Kitty: But you know I would have come back to you, at a word. You know I’d have given up everything if you’d talked to me as you’ve been talking to me tonight.

Lemuel: Then let’s get back to the subject.

Kitty: It’s too late. It’s too wide a gulf for us to reach across. (She draws away from him, resolutely, then falters and sinks in a chair beside the desk. She is crying a little.) We—we waited too long.

Lemuel: I don’t know as either of us is falling to pieces yet, like the One-Horse Shay.

Kitty: No, but after meaning so much to me, you let me pass out of your life. There was never a kind word from you, until I tricked it out of you tonight.

Lemuel: Those words weren’t tricked out of me. They came straight from the heart.

Kitty: I wish I could believe it, Lemuel. But life has made me very skeptical of men’s vows.

(Lemuel, with his head lowered, turns away in despair. He looks up irritably as the Victrola music starts up again.)

Lemuel: I wish that young cub would leave that phonograph alone!

(Kitty does not speak, for her eyes have fallen on the old love-letters on the desk in front of her. She takes them up, tenderly, as the music plays softly, turning them over with unsteady hands.)

Kitty: Our letters! So you kept them, through all these years!

Lemuel: They were all of you I had left.

Kitty (taking up his unfinished letter and reading from it): Darling . . . I shall always remember the halo of your hair . . . like an April evening after rain . . . rapture and moonlight and you in my arms . . . that whispered word, as quiet as rain . . . and the moonlight on your lips . . . (She fights to keep back the tears.) The old words! The old magic. But it couldn’t have been meant for me.

Lemuel: Why couldn’t it? Do you s’pose I meant it for Smithers?

Kitty: Then it’s true. I was in your thoughts.

Lemuel: I wrote that before you came here, before I even knew you were coming. (Swallowing hard.) And I wrote it for you.

Kitty: Then you hadn’t forgotten. Oh, how women hunger to be remembered! You were thinking of me!

Lemuel (coming closer): I have never stopped thinking of you.

Kitty: Then it couldn’t have been all play-acting.

Lemuel: It came from the bottom of my heart.

Kitty (placing a hand on his head as he kneels beside her): My true and gallant knight! Always loyal and always honest.

Lemuel (wincing): Loyal, at any rate.

Kitty: And you still love me?

Lemuel: I love you more than anything else in life. And this time you’re going to marry me, or I won’t be responsible for what happens. You’ve got to.

Kitty: And this isn’t play-acting?

Lemuel (as he seizes her): Is this? (He holds her close, kissing her so ardently that she gasps and draws away for air.)

Kitty: I’m so happy, that I’m afraid I’m going to cry.

Lemuel: Then supposing you kiss me again.

Kitty (holding him back as she sobers and looks about): But we mustn’t, in our own happiness, forget about the children.

Lemuel: Children? What children?

Kitty: Alice and Alan. We must always think of them. We’ll never have children of our own, and—

Lemuel (drawing himself up): Oh, I don’t know about that!

Kitty (with tender compassion): Foolish, foolish boy! (She kisses him with almost motherly compassion.) But we must think of Alice and Alan.

Lemuel: Oh, those young cubs can look after themselves. I’ve something more important on my mind just now.

Kitty: What could be more important?

Lemuel: You and me! (He draws her close to him again.) Can’t you see, darling, that we’ve got a lot of lost time to make up for? That spring is coming back after a long and bitter winter. And I’m going to make hay while the sun shines. Look out for me, Kitty, for I’m going to make love to you as no woman was ever made love to before!

Kitty: Lemuel, you’re giving me gooseflesh! You—you make me almost afraid of you.

Lemuel: You’d better be. For do you know what we’re going to do now? We’re going down there in the garden, where the lilacs are in bloom. We’re going out in the moonlight, and I’m going to make love to you until your head swims.

Kitty: I am afraid of you.

Lemuel: Good! For it’s my hour, now, and this time you’re not going to get away from me.

Kitty (as he leads her toward the door): Won’t you need a coat or something?

Lemuel: Coat my eye! Tonight I could go through Alaska in my B. V. D’s.

(They go out, left, arm in arm. A moment later Alice and Alan appear at the door, right, peering cautiously about the empty room.)

Alan: By George, I believe we’ve got them together.

Alice (peering from moonlit window): Why, Alan, they’re out in the garden.

Alan (joining her): That’s right. They’re down there by the lilac bushes. And all that wet grass. Honestly, I think that’s going a little too far. Uncle Lemuel shouldn’t be out there at this time of night.

Alice: Darling, it’s exactly where he should be. It’s where we’ve been trying to get him.

Alan: But there’s a reason in all things. Remember his age.

Alice: Perhaps he’s forgotten it. And even if he hasn’t, it doesn’t matter much. We may be in love, Alan, but we haven’t a monopoly on it.

Alan (taking her in his arms): But we’ve a monopoly, dearest, on our way of loving. (He kisses her.) They’ll never love as we do. Nobody else in all the world can ever love a woman as I love you. (He kisses her again.) Poor old Uncle Lemuel.

Alice: Why do you pity him?

Alan (with the arrogance of youth): Because when you’re that old, of course, you can’t really understand.

Alice (speaking more softly as she stares out through the moonlight): He seems to be doing pretty well out there.

Alan (staring out rather aghast): The old scoundrel. He’s kissing her!

Alice: He does it rather well. (She leans farther out, with a head-nod of approval. Then she gasps again.) Why, he’s no oyster, that uncle of yours!

Curtain

THE CLEVEREST WOMAN IN THE WORLD

Lucy: Oh, no; not in here. Don’t you understand English? I’ve told you three times in two days Miss Newman can’t and won’t see you. (She tries to shut the door, but it is forced back against her as Coke Carson, pale, nervous and disheveled, pushes past her and enters the apartment, followed by Glen Barry, quiet but quick-eyed. He sizes up the room, and then Lucy, whose stare remains a hostile one.)

Coke: I’m going to talk to that woman or the roof’s going to come off. And if she won’t listen to me she’s going to listen to my friend.

Lucy: But what d’you want?

Coke: I want my money.

Lucy: Miss Newman hasn’t got your money. (She inspects him with a pitying eye.) And you’ve got rats in your garret. You’re coo-coo.

Coke: Coo-coo, am I? Well, I was sane enough when that dame chiseled thirty thousand dollars out of me. And I’m going to get it back, and you can go in there and tell her so.

Glen: Just a minute. Let’s not get excited. And I thought I was to do the talking this time.

Coke: All right, talk! But it’ll take real oratory to get anything out of Claire Newman. She’s—she’s just about the cleverest bird in this burg.

Glen: That’s pretty sweeping, isn’t it?

Coke: Well, I’ll make it more sweeping. She’s just about the cleverest woman on God’s green earth! (He sinks in the easy chair.)

Glen (to Coke): That’s your alibi. But what we’re after here is action. (He calmly takes out a card, which he hands to Lucy, who after inspecting the card and then it’s owner, undergoes a change of manner.)

Lucy: I think maybe she’d see you, sir. (She turns and inspects Coke, with contempt.) But as for this poor nut—say, that bug’s been hanging around here hot-airing about a million dollars that was shaken out of his jeans, until he’s given us all the pip. And if you want to get anywhere you’d better give him the gate.

Glen: I’ll see that he behaves himself. (Significantly.) And you can assure Miss Newman she’ll lose nothing by having a few words with me.

Lucy: I get you. (She crosses to door left.) But you’ll have to wait. I can’t pick her out of the bathtub and bring ’er out on the half-shell.

Glen: We’ll wait.

(Lucy, after a glare at Coke, goes out. Coke, when the door closes, shifts his chair a little closer to Glen’s. His laugh as he looks about the room is almost a snarl.)

Coke: Nice layout for a lush-dip, isn’t it?

Glen: The toasted cheese, I suppose, that gets the mouse. (He turns back to Coke.) Is this where she got your money?

Coke: Not by a long shot. She’s too clever for that. She had her gang lure me downtown and do the trimming. But I know she was the brains of that outfit. Why she’s the cleverest—

Glen: You told me that before. But I still don’t see how they took it away from you.

Coke (gloomily): I don’t myself. But did you ever happen to hear of a wire-tapper?

Glen: You mean an outlaw operator who cuts in on the wires to get advance race returns?

Coke: And comes to you with a story about making half a million in easy money?

Glen: Oh, yes; I’ve heard of ’em! And how some stranger from the sticks falls for it every day of the week.

Coke: Well, I was the sucker from the sticks. I swallowed it hook, bait, and sinker. And they shook me down for everything I owned—and considerable I didn’t.

Glen: Speak quietly. What’d they do to you?

Coke (after swallowing hard): I came up to this town from Hanover, Virginia, with thirty thousand dollars that didn’t belong to me. They sent me north to buy a marble quarry on the Potomac. I wasn’t used to New York. I didn’t know they chained their doormats to the floor and you couldn’t speak to your neighbor without a police permit. So when a well-set-up stranger started talking about horses and races, over at the hotel, and knew all about the string Keene sent south last winter, he hit something that was pretty near home to me. Virginia’s a great state for stock-farming and horse-breeding.

Glen: Never mind the geography.

Coke: This stuffed shirt told me how the city manager of the Western Union, the man who ran the race-returns department, was an old school friend of his. He said they were working out a plan for a big killing. The local manager was to hold back the returns from the Norfolk races, ’phone ’em to us, and we were to cut across to a plush-trimmed poolroom and bet the limit on a dead sure thing. D’you get me?

Glen: Perfectly. About twice a week, in the tabloids, you read of such things.

Coke: The local manager said he couldn’t afford to figure in the game. He said he’d have to use his sister-in-law to turn the trick.

Glen: Sister-in-law, I take it, being the cheese that baited the trap.

Coke: She’s no cheese, that dame. She’s a winner. She’s something you’d want to write home about. I tell you she’s the cleverest wo—

Glen: Yes. Of course. But go on with the funeral oration.

Coke: That local manager seemed disappointed when he found out I’d only a little over thirty thousand, counting my own pocket money. He claimed the killing ought to be a quarter of a million. He beefed about holding up official dispatches, and the risk he was taking, and how everything had to be kept under cover. But he finally weakened. So my hotel friend steered me over to a gilt-edged poolroom, in a brownstone front on West Fortieth Street. It was fitted up with ’phones and racing charts and a couple of telegraph keys and a bar where they served cocktails and sandwiches free. And they had stuffed olives and caviar and—

Glen: Never mind about the commissariat. What’d you do?

Coke: When the returns started to come in and I got my private Western Union tip, by a window-signal from my friend, I took a chance and played a three-to-one shot for fifty dollars.

Glen: And the sucker always wins the first bet?

Coke (sadly): I won, all right. But I thought it over and decided to quit. That one hundred and fifty was good enough for me.

Glen: And then?

Coke: Then the lady showed up. She looked good enough to make me forget home and mother and risk thirty thousand dollars that didn’t belong to me. On a fake bet. I played everything I had exactly as she told me to play it.

Glen: But the wires got crossed that afternoon?

Coke: How’d you know it?

Glen: It’s an old, old story, my friend.

Coke (with mounting bitterness): But it’s something new with me. It’s cleaned me out. It’s made me a criminal. And how am I ever going back to face the people I’ve robbed?

Glen: Is that any reason why you should take it lying down?

Coke: But they’ve cleaned me out. And I can’t even go to the police about it. They’d only give me the laugh and say I got what was coming to me. (He gets up and paces the room.) And the East River’s the best place for an easy mark like me.