BELL. Yes — no — why did you go away?
KIT. You can’t mean —
BELL. Not before them all! (Goes into saloon.)
MRS. GOLIGHTLY (who has been speaking to JASPER while NANNY is with ANDREW). Mr. Upjohn, let me introduce you to Colonel Neil, who saved Bell’s life! (Goes into saloon.)
JASPER. It was nothing!
(JASPER and KIT shake hands.)
KIT. It was a great deal. I seem to know your face, Colonel Neil, and yet I cannot remember —
ANDREW. Upjohn, look here!
(KIT goes to ANDREW.)
JASPER. I have shaved him often!
(Exit to bedroom.)
NANNY. Auntie, I am dying to speak with you! Did you see how white she turned?
MRS. GOLIGHTLY. Bell? I suppose she was surprised to see him!
NANNY. Auntie, don’t you understand? They quarrelled, and he has come back to make it up!
MRS. GOLIGHTLY. Bell is so secretive!
NANNY. You saw how she ran away from him?
MRS. GOLIGHTLY. Girls don’t run from the man they love!
NANNY. Oh, don’t they? Sure, can’t he run after them?
(Exit MRS. GOLIGHTLY and NANNY.)
KIT. So that you are now a full-fledged medical man. I congratulate you, old fellow!
ANDREW. Oh, I was always sure I should pass, hadn’t the least anxiety about it. Have a cigar? (Hands him case.)
KIT. Thanks. (He is about to take it, but draws back.)
No, I mean. I have given up smoking. It doesn’t agree with me.
ANDREW. Ha! Heart? Liver? Pains here? (Taps KIT’S chest.) I’ll go over him tomorrow with the stethoscope.
(Exits.)
JASPER (with lighted candle in bedroom). I have not only shaved him — I have cut him!
KIT (at bow). What can she mean? It cannot be that I am too late!
BELL (at saloon). Oh, how is it that love and respect seem to be such different things!
JASPER. This houseboat is getting too hot for me. I’ll pack and be ready to bolt. I would have bolted this afternoon but those two girls never took their eyes off me!
BELL. Oh, that the Colonel had been content with sisterly regard!
JASPER. She took me up wrong! I only proposed to be her brother! (Proceeds to pack.)
BELL. But he loves me so!
JASPER. But she was that keen about it!
BELL. Kit — Kit!
JASPER. I wish I was back with Sarah! I wonder where Sarah is now!
(SARAH moves.)
W. G. I say, Upjohn, what a pity you didn’t come back in time for the match! The men played with broomsticks, you know, but I was in tremendous form. I lifted Nanny twice clear over the pavilion!
KIT. Did you? W. G., tell your sister quietly that I want to speak with her — quietly, remember!
W. G. All right — Bell! Bell! Upjohn wants you I bell. Oh, what can I say to him?
JASPER (who has been packing). Funny thing I can’t see my best clothes anywhere! (Looks for them.)
(Exit, bell leaves saloon and goes to bow, W. G., lying on plank, sits down and whistles, bell and kit look at him.)
BELL. W. G. dear, go up and light the deck lanterns, W. G. There’s no hurry!
KIT (pause). I have something to say to your sister, W. G.
W. G. All right — fire away!
(NANNY enters saloon.)
BELL. But alone, W. G.
W. G. Don’t mind me!
(They look at him helplessly.)
ANDREW (entering saloon). Miss O’Brien, do you know what I have been thinking? I have been thinking that I should like to have you for my first patient.
NANNY. But I am quite well!
ANDREW. Hum! I am not so sure of that! Have we had any headaches lately? (She nods.) Ha I has our appetite been — (She shakes head.) Quite so. Let me see your tongue. (She sits down and he feels her pulse, gets paper and writes a prescription, all in quiet by-play.)
KIT. W. G., just before you came back, I saw a big fish jump over there — beneath the willow!
W. G. Balbus!
(Seizes fishingrod and exits along bank.)
KIT. Bell — (She points to saloon.)
ANDREW (handing prescription). Three times a day, Miss O’Brien, on a piece of sugar and we shall soon be all right!
NANNY (curtseys). Thank you, doctor!
(KIT signs to NANNY. She goes to him, he whispers to her, she takes ANDREW by the coat and exits.)
BELL. Oh, Mr. Upjohn, why have you come back? (On bow.)
KIT. Are you not pleased to see me, Bell? (Sits on ladder.)
BELL. Why did you not come sooner?
KIT. I seem to have come too soon!
BELL. Why did you ever go away?
KIT. You bade me.
BELL. No — no!
KIT. But, Bell, here I am at any rate, come back and humbled, dear, to ask you to be my wife!
BELL. Kit — you are too late!
KIT. What — Neil has — ?
BELL. Yes, and I accepted him!
KIT. Bell!
BELL. Pity me, Kit!
KIT. Why should I pity you?
BELL. Oh, Kit, he saved my life! and he — he has precisely my views on every question of the day. I felt that he and I must have been made for each other. I felt that love, if it is a worthy thing, must be a matter not of mere sensation, but of judgment, and I drew up a paper to see, by the light of reason, whether I loved him or you. He got 90 per cent, for politeness, and you only got 50. For sweetness of disposition he had 80 to your 40. He got 85 for hard work, and you 30, and for largeness of view on the question of the sexes he had 100 to your 10. His total was 335 and yours 130. So I felt that I must prefer him, and oh! I wish that I had never learned logic!
(She cowers, sits, and he looks reproachfully at her.)
JASPER (looks out window). I’m wasting time looking for those clothes, and, after all, why should I cut the honeymoon short? I suppose now that Upjohn is her brother. I wonder if he would change places with me? But no — she wouldn’t let him!
KIT. Damn logic!
BELL. Yes, yes!
KIT. Then you do love me, Bell?
BELL. Yes, but —
KIT. It is not too late.
BELL. Is it not, Kit? None of the others know.
KIT. I will appeal to him to set you free!
JASPER.