Mrs. Dale. The same old story! I’m so toed of it all. (To herself, in an undertone.) But how should I feel if it all stopped? (The servant brings in a card.)
Mrs. Dale (reading it). Is it possible? Paul Ventnor? (To the servant.) Show Mr. Ventnor up. (To herself.) Paul Ventnor!
Hilda (breathless). Oh, Mrs. Dale—the Mr. Ventnor?
Mrs. Dale (smiling). I fancy there’s only one.
Hilda. The great, great poet? (Irresolute.) No, I don’t dare—
Mrs. Dale (with a tinge of impatience). What?
Hilda (fervently). Ask you—if I might—oh, here in this corner, where he can’t possibly notice me—stay just a moment? Just to see him come in? To see the meeting between you—the greatest novelist and the greatest poet of the age? Oh, it’s too much to ask! It’s an historic moment.
Mrs. Dale. Why, I suppose it is. I hadn’t thought of it in that light. Well (smiling), for the diary—
Hilda. Oh, thank you, thank you! I’ll be off the very instant I’ve heard him speak.
Mrs. Dale. The very instant, mind. (She rises, looks at herself in the glass, smooths her hair, sits down again, and rattles the tea-caddy.) Isn’t the room very warm?—_(She looks over at her portrait.)_ I’ve grown stouter since that was painted—. You’ll make a fortune out of that diary, Hilda—
Hilda (modestly). Four publishers have applied to me already—
The Servant (announces). Mr. Paul Ventnor.
(Tall, nearing fifty, with an incipient stoutness buttoned into a masterly frock-coat, Ventnor drops his glass and advances vaguely, with a shortsighted stare.)
Ventnor. Mrs. Dale?
Mrs. Dale. My dear friend! This is kind. (She looks over her shoulder at Hilda, mho vanishes through the door to the left.) The papers announced your arrival, but I hardly hoped—
Ventnor (whose shortsighted stare is seen to conceal a deeper embarrassment). You hadn’t forgotten me, then?
Mrs. Dale. Delicious! Do you forget that you’re public property?
Ventnor. Forgotten, I mean, that we were old friends?
Mrs. Dale. Such old friends! May I remind you that it’s nearly twenty years since we’ve met? Or do you find cold reminiscences indigestible?
Ventnor. On the contrary, I’ve come to ask you for a dish of them—we’ll warm them up together. You’re my first visit.
Mrs. Dale. How perfect of you! So few men visit their women friends in chronological order; or at least they generally do it the other way round, beginning with the present day and working back—if there’s time—to prehistoric woman.
Ventnor. But when prehistoric woman has become historic woman—?
Mrs. Dale. Oh, it’s the reflection of my glory that has guided you here, then?
Ventnor. It’s a spirit in my feet that has led me, at the first opportunity, to the most delightful spot I know.
Mrs. Dale. Oh, the first opportunity—!
Ventnor. I might have seen you very often before; but never just in the right way.
Mrs. Dale. Is this the right way?
Ventnor. It depends on you to make it so.
Mrs. Dale. What a responsibility! What shall I do?
Ventnor. Talk to me—make me think you’re a little glad to see me; give me some tea and a cigarette; and say you’re out to everyone else.
Mrs. Dale. Is that all? (She hands him a cup of tea.) The cigarettes are at your elbow—. And do you think I shouldn’t have been glad to see you before?
Ventnor. No; I think I should have been too glad to see you.
Mrs. Dale. Dear me, what precautions! I hope you always wear goloshes when it looks like rain and never by any chance expose yourself to a draught. But I had an idea that poets courted the emotions—
Ventnor. Do novelists?
Mrs. Dale. If you ask me—on paper!
Ventnor. Just so; that’s safest. My best things about the sea have been written on shore. (He looks at her thoughtfully.) But it wouldn’t have suited us in the old days, would it?
Mrs. Dale (sighing). When we were real people!
Ventnor. Real people?
Mrs. Dale. Are you, now? I died years ago. What you see before you is a figment of the reporter’s brain—a monster manufactured out of newspaper paragraphs, with ink in its veins. A keen sense of copyright is my nearest approach to an emotion.
Ventnor (sighing). Ah, well, yes—as you say, we’re public property.
Mrs. Dale. If one shared equally with the public! But the last shred of my identity is gone.
Ventnor. Most people would be glad to part with theirs on such terms. I have followed your work with immense interest. Immolation is a masterpiece. I read it last summer when it first came out.
Mrs. Dale (with a shade less warmth). Immolation has been out three years.
Ventnor. Oh, by Jove—no? Surely not—But one is so overwhelmed—one loses count. (Reproachfully.) Why have you never sent me your books?
Mrs. Dale. For that very reason.
Ventnor (deprecatingly). You know I didn’t mean it for you! And my first book—do you remember—was dedicated to you.
Mrs. Dale. Silver Trumpets—
Ventnor (much interested). Have you a copy still, by any chance? The first edition, I mean? Mine was stolen years ago. Do you think you could put your hand on it?
Mrs. Dale (taking a small shabby book from the table at her side). It’s here.
Ventnor (eagerly). May I have it? Ah, thanks. This is very interesting. The last copy sold in London for £40, and they tell me the next will fetch twice as much. It’s quite introuvable.
Mrs. Dale. I know that. (A pause. She takes the book from him, opens it, and reads, half to herself—)
_How much we two have seen together, Of other eyes unwist, Dear as in days of leafless weather The willow’s saffron mist,
Strange as the hour when Hesper swings A-sea in beryl green, While overhead on dalliant wings The daylight hangs serene,
And thrilling as a meteor’s fall Through depths of lonely sky, When each to each two watchers call: I saw it!—So did I._
Ventnor. Thin, thin—the troubadour tinkle. Odd how little promise there is in first volumes!
Mrs. Dale (with irresistible emphasis). I thought there was a distinct promise in this!
Ventnor (seeing his mistake). Ah—the one you would never let me fulfil? (Sentimentally.) How inexorable you were! You never dedicated a book to me.
Mrs. Dale. I hadn’t begun to write when we were—dedicating things to each other.
Ventnor. Not for the public—but you wrote for me; and, wonderful as you are, you’ve never written anything since that I care for half as much as—
Mrs. Dale (interested). Well?
Ventnor. Your letters.
Mrs. Dale (in a changed voice). My letters—do you remember them?
Ventnor. When I don’t,