When the curtain dropped she turned.
“You see,” she said, screwing up her eyes, “I have to think of Robert.” She cut the word in two, with an odd little hitch in her voice—“ROB-ert.”
“My dear Julia, can't you believe that I'm tired of being thought of,” cried Robert, flushing.
Julia screwed up her eyes in a slow smile, oddly cogitating.
“Well, who AM I to think of?” she asked.
“Yourself,” said Lilly.
“Oh, yes! Why, yes! I never thought of that!” She gave a hurried little laugh. “But then it's no FUN to think about oneself,” she cried flatly. “I think about ROB-ert, and SCOTT.” She screwed up her eyes and peered oddly at the company.
“Which of them will find you the greatest treat,” said Lilly sarcastically.
“Anyhow,” interjected Robert nervously, “it will be something new for Scott.”
“Stale buns for you, old boy,” said Jim drily.
“I don't say so. But—” exclaimed the flushed, full-blooded Robert, who was nothing if not courteous to women.
“How long ha' you been married? Eh?” asked Jim.
“Six years!” sang Julia sweetly.
“Good God!”
“You see,” said Robert, “Julia can't decide anything for herself. She waits for someone else to decide, then she puts her spoke in.”
“Put it plainly—” began Struthers.
“But don't you know, it's no USE putting it plainly,” cried Julia.
“But DO you want to be with Scott, out and out, or DON'T you?” said Lilly.
“Exactly!” chimed Robert. “That's the question for you to answer Julia.”
“I WON'T answer it,” she cried. “Why should I?” And she looked away into the restless hive of the theatre. She spoke so wildly that she attracted attention. But it half pleased her. She stared abstractedly down at the pit.
The men looked at one another in some comic consternation.
“Oh, damn it all!” said the long Jim, rising and stretching himself. “She's dead nuts on Scott. She's all over him. She'd have eloped with him weeks ago if it hadn't been so easy. She can't stand it that Robert offers to hand her into the taxi.”
He gave his malevolent grin round the company, then went out. He did not reappear for the next scene.
“Of course, if she loves Scott—” began Struthers.
Julia suddenly turned with wild desperation, and cried:
“I like him tremendously—tre-men-dous-ly! He DOES understand.”
“Which we don't,” said Robert.
Julia smiled her long, odd smile in their faces: one might almost say she smiled in their teeth.
“What do YOU think, Josephine?” asked Lilly.
Josephine was leaning froward. She started. Her tongue went rapidly over her lips. “Who—? I—?” she exclaimed.
“Yes.”
“I think Julia should go with Scott,” said Josephine. “She'll bother with the idea till she's done it. She loves him, really.”
“Of course she does,” cried Robert.
Julia, with her chin resting on her arms, in a position which irritated the neighbouring Lady Cochrane sincerely, was gazing with unseeing eyes down upon the stalls.
“Well then—” began Struthers. But the music struck up softly. They were all rather bored. Struthers kept on making small, half audible remarks—which was bad form, and displeased Josephine, the hostess of the evening.
When the curtain came down for the end of the act, the men got up. Lilly's wife, Tanny, suddenly appeared. She had come on after a dinner engagement.
“Would you like tea or anything?” Lilly asked.
The women refused. The men filtered out on to the crimson and white, curving corridor. Julia, Josephine and Tanny remained in the box. Tanny was soon hitched on to the conversation in hand.
“Of course,” she replied, “one can't decide such a thing like drinking a cup of tea.”
“Of course, one can't, dear Tanny,” said Julia.
“After all, one doesn't leave one's husband every day, to go and live with another man. Even if one looks on it as an experiment—.”
“It's difficult!” cried Julia. “It's difficult! I feel they all want to FORCE me to decide. It's cruel.”
“Oh, men with their beastly logic, their either-this-or-that stunt, they are an awful bore.—But of course, Robert can't love you REALLY, or he'd want to keep you. I can see Lilly discussing such a thing for ME. But then you don't love Robert either,” said Tanny.
“I do! Oh, I do, Tanny! I DO love him, I love him dearly. I think he's beautiful. Robert's beautiful. And he NEEDS me. And I need him too. I need his support. Yes, I do love him.”
“But you like Scott better,” said Tanny.
“Only because he—he's different,” sang Julia, in long tones. “You see Scott has his art. His art matters. And ROB-ert—Robert is a dilettante, don't you think—he's dilettante—” She screwed up her eyes at Tanny. Tanny cogitated.
“Of course I don't think that matters,” she replied.
“But it does, it matters tremendously, dear Tanny, tremendously.”
“Of course,” Tanny sheered off. “I can see Scott has great attractions—a great warmth somewhere—”
“Exactly!” cried Julia. “He UNDERSTANDS!”
“And I believe he's a real artist. You might even work together. You might write his librettos.”
“Yes!—Yes!—” Julia spoke with a long, pondering hiss.
“It might be AWFULLY nice,” said Tanny rapturously.
“Yes!—It might!—It might—!” pondered Julia. Suddenly she gave herself a shake. Then she laughed hurriedly, as if breaking from her line of thought.
“And wouldn't Robert be an AWFULLY nice lover for Josephine! Oh, wouldn't that be splendid!” she cried, with her high laugh.
Josephine, who had been gazing down into the orchestra, turned now, flushing darkly.
“But I don't want a lover, Julia,” she said, hurt.
“Josephine dear! Dear old Josephine! Don't you really! Oh, yes, you do.—I want one so BADLY,” cried Julia, with her shaking laugh. “Robert's awfully good to me. But we've been married six years. And it does make a difference, doesn't it, Tanny dear?”
“A great difference,” said Tanny.
“Yes, it makes a difference, it makes a difference,” mused Julia. “Dear old Rob-ert—I wouldn't hurt him for worlds. I wouldn't. Do you think it would hurt Robert?”
She screwed up her eyes, looking at Tanny.
“Perhaps it