PAUL. How beautiful you look — my bride!
(They sigh, then wake up.)
Any more wedding gifts?
MARGARET (sadly). Another salad bowl!
PAUL. That makes — nine — salad bowls! But let us look on the bright side, as your father would say. Margaret, I have good news — two offers for my ‘Birth of Sorrow ‘ picture.
(He draws her on to couch.)
MARGARET (impulsively). Oh, tell me! Quick!
PAUL. I want you to decide which I should accept. The one is from a dealer who offers five hundred pounds.
MARGARET. The dear man!
PAUL. The other is from the French Government — two thousand francs.
MARGARET. How splendid! How much is that?
PAUL. About eighty pounds.
MARGARET. The impertinence!
PAUL. But, dear, it is the eighty pounds I should like you to let me take.
MARGARET. Paul!
PAUL. Think of the honour. My picture chosen by the Government of France to hang in the Luxembourg.
MARGARET. But five hundred pounds!
PAUL. Shall we accept it?
MARGARET. No, no. I am an ignorant girl, dear; but I begin to see what it is to be an artist’s wife. Paul, the picture shall go to Paris.
PAUL (delighted). My noble girl! Time enough to paint for money, dear, when I am an Academician with half a dozen chins.
MARGARET. It is you who are noble. I have heard people say, again and again, that no one could conceive such subjects as yours, much less paint them, who was not a noble character himself. So there!
PAUL (sadly). Ah, they don’t understand. It is only the best of us, Margaret, that goes into our pictures. A man may rise above himself for an hour, and yet be a poor thing enough for the rest of the day. And it has been so with me.
MARGARET. Paul, it is when you say such things that I love you most.
PAUL. Because you don’t believe them.
MARGARET. No! (He sighs and she has a sudden thought.) Paul, have you ever kept anything from me?
PAUL (after hesitating). How could I?
MARGARET. Do you know, I almost wish you had. (Shuddering) Because I have kept something from you.
PAUL. Impossible!
MARGARET. Yes, I have, about a man! I have wanted to tell you, but it was so awful. Oh, let me tell you now.
(With a rush) Paul, when I was seventeen, it was in the conservatory — his name was Jack — he kissed me!
PAUL. Is that all, dear?
MARGARET. All? Is it not enough? Could there be worse?
PAUL (FONDLY). You child!
MARGARET. And now we know everything about each other.
(He turns away with a pained face.)
And we are as much in love as ever!
PAUL (PASSIONATELY). Margaret, if you were to love me one tittle less —
MARGARET. As if! COULD!
(Enter up steps and through window CAPTAIN ARMITAGE, a gay young man.)
ARMITAGE (with the privileged importance of a best man). Aha, young man! Come with me at once and have your hair curled.
PAUL. Armitage, begone!
ARMITAGE. Come, sir, I insist. I am your best man, and don’t give me the slip again. Why, the guests are beginning to arrive.
MARGARET. Already! (jumping up.)
ARMITAGE. I heard Mr. Fairbairn say that Lady Janet Dunwoodie’s carriage is in the avenue.
MARGARET. Aunt Janet!
(runs out gleefully.)
ARMITAGE (surveying paul). A bit nervous?
PAUL (BOLDLY). Not in the least.
ARMITAGE. You look like a ghost.
PAUL (nervously). Stop it!
ARMITAGE (observing train). Hallo, what’s this?
PAUL (not paying much attention and thinking about other things). Margaret’s train. She took it off.
ARMITAGE. And leaves it lying about in this careless way! Hasn’t even rolled it up! Upon my soul, I think you have both gone crazy, and if I wasn’t here to take charge of you I believe the marriage would never come off. Disgraceful!
(folds up train and puts it in ingle-nook.) There now, that’s what I call tidy.
PAUL (who has been communing with himself). Armitage, this Aunt Janet — I don’t know her, though she lives near here, and Margaret is very anxious that she should like me.
(ANXIOUSLY) Do you think she will like me?
ARMITAGE. I shouldn’t think so. You are not the sort of man I would fancy if I were a woman. Shouldn’t wonder if she were to dote on me, though.
PAUL. She is said to be very formidable. A GRANDE DAME.
ARMITAGE. I thought there were no Scotch GRANDES DAMES.
PAUL. My young friend, there are only Scotch ones.
ARMITAGE. You alarm me. Married?
PAUL. No. Fairbairn told me she was once engaged, but broke off the marriage on discovering that the man — well, she discovered something about a woman.
(He speaks in a pained voice, ARMITAGE looks at him cynically, PAUL turns away, unable to face him. MARGARET enters with LADY JANET. She is an aristocratic, haughty old lady, with a sense of humour and a suspicion of young gentlemen.)
MARGARET. Paul, here is Aunt Janet!
LADY JANET. Is this Mr. Digby? (Looking at ARMITAGE.)
ARMITAGE (with a complacency that ruffles all her feathers). Only his best man, Lady Janet.
LADY JANET (with excessive politeness). I’M glad OF that.
(It dawns slowly on ARMITAGE that she is not paying him a compliment.)
MARGARET. This is Paul, auntie.
(PAUL comes forward and bows, LADY JANET shakes hands.)
LADY JANET. I seem to know your face, Mr. Digby. Ever been in this part of the world before?
PAUL. Only once — before I knew Margaret — I was sketching, eighteen months ago.
LADY JANET. Ah, indeed.
MARGARET. That was how it began, auntie, though I didn’t meet him then. But father met him and that led to his asking father to go and see his pictures when we were next in London. And that led to MY going to the studio — and that led to — to —
(She blushes.)
ARMITAGE (WILLING TO GIVE HER LADYSHIP ANOTHER CHANCE). To my wanting to lead him off now, to curl his hair.
(LADY JANET surveys him, and ARMITAGE’S complacency again deserts him.)
LADY JANET (to MARGARET). Then I knew him before you did. (TO PAUL) I was sure I remembered your face. I saw you — it must have been on that occasion you speak of — you were making a sketch — let me see — of some fishing-boats.
PAUL (smiling).! Remember — and you asked to see the sketch —