MAURY: (In an undertone to DICK) Haven’t seen Muriel since Anthony’s wedding.
DICK: She’s now in her prime. Her latest is “I’ll say so!”
(ANTHONY struggles for a while with PARAMORE and at length attempts to make the conversation general by asking every one to have a drink.)
MAURY: I’ve done pretty well on this bottle. I’ve gone from “Proof” down to “Distillery.” (He indicates the words on the label.)
ANTHONY: (To PARAMORE) Never can tell when these two will turn up. Said good-by to them one afternoon at five and darned if they didn’t appear about two in the morning. A big hired touring-car from New York drove up to the door and out they stepped, drunk as lords, of course.
(In an ecstasy of consideration PARAMORE regards the cover of a book which he holds in his hand. MAURY and DICK exchange a glance.)
DICK: (Innocently, to PARAMORE) You work here in town?
PARAMORE: No, I’m in the Laird Street Settlement in Stamford. (To
ANTHONY) You have no idea of the amount of poverty in these small
Connecticut towns. Italians and other immigrants. Catholics mostly, you
know, so it’s very hard to reach them.
ANTHONY: (Politely) Lot of crime?
PARAMORE: Not so much crime as ignorance and dirt.
MAURY: That’s my theory: immediate electrocution of all ignorant and dirty people. I’m all for the criminals — give color to life. Trouble is if you started to punish ignorance you’d have to begin in the first families, then you could take up the moving picture people, and finally Congress and the clergy.
PARAMORE: (Smiling uneasily) I was speaking of the more fundamental ignorance — of even our language.
MAURY: (Thoughtfully) I suppose it is rather hard. Can’t even keep up with the new poetry.
PARAMORE: It’s only when the settlement work has gone on for months that one realizes how bad things are. As our secretary said to me, your fingernails never seem dirty until you wash your hands. Of course we’re already attracting much attention.
MAURY: (Rudely) As your secretary might say, if you stuff paper into a grate it’ll burn brightly for a moment.
(At this point GLORIA, freshly tinted and lustful of admiration and entertainment, rejoins the party, followed by her two friends. For several moments the conversation becomes entirely fragmentary. GLORIA calls ANTHONY aside.)
GLORIA: Please don’t drink much, Anthony.
ANTHONY: Why?
GLORIA: Because you’re so simple when you’re drunk.
ANTHONY: Good Lord! What’s the matter now?
GLORIA: (After a pause during which her eyes gaze coolly into his) Several things. In the first place, why do you insist on paying for everything? Both those men have more money than you!
ANTHONY: Why, Gloria! They’re my guests!
GLORIA: That’s no reason why you should pay for a bottle of champagne Rachael Barnes smashed. Dick tried to fix that second taxi bill, and you wouldn’t let him.
ANTHONY: Why, Gloria —
GLORIA: When we have to keep selling bonds to even pay our bills, it’s time to cut down on excess generosities. Moreover, I wouldn’t be quite so attentive to Rachael Barnes. Her husband doesn’t like it any more than I do!
ANTHONY: Why, Gloria —
GLORIA: (Mimicking him sharply) “Why, Gloria!” But that’s happened a little too often this summer — with every pretty woman you meet. It’s grown to be a sort of habit, and I’m not going to stand it! If you can play around, I can, too. (Then, as an afterthought) By the way, this Fred person isn’t a second Joe Hull, is he?
ANTHONY: Heavens, no! He probably came up to get me to wheedle some money out of grandfather for his flock.
(GLORIA turns away from a very depressed ANTHONY and returns to her guests.
By nine o’clock these can be divided into two classes — those who have been drinking consistently and those who have taken little or nothing. In the second group are the BARNESES, MURIEL, and FREDERICK E. PARAMORE.)
MURIEL: I wish I could write. I get these ideas but I never seem to be able to put them in words.
DICK: As Goliath said, he understood how David felt, but he couldn’t express himself. The remark was immediately adopted for a motto by the Philistines.
MURIEL: I don’t get you. I must be getting stupid in my old age.
GLORIA: (Weaving unsteadily among the company like an exhilarated angel) If any one’s hungry there’s some French pastry on the dining room table.
MAURY: Can’t tolerate those Victorian designs it comes in.
MURIEL: (Violently amused) I’ll say you’re tight, Maury.
(Her bosom is still a pavement that she offers to the hoofs of many passing stallions, hoping that their iron shoes may strike even a spark of romance in the darkness …
Messrs. BARNES and PARAMORE have been engaged in conversation upon some wholesome subject, a subject so wholesome that MR. BARNES has been trying for several moments to creep into the more tainted air around the central lounge. Whether PARAMORE is lingering in the gray house out of politeness or curiosity, or in order at some future time to make a sociological report on the decadence of American life, is problematical.)
MAURY: Fred, I imagined you were very broadminded.
PARAMORE: I am.
MURIEL: Me, too. I believe one religion’s as good as another and everything.
PARAMORE: There’s some good in all religions.
MURIEL: I’m a Catholic but, as I always say, I’m not working at it.
PARAMORE: (With a tremendous burst of tolerance) The Catholic religion is a very — a very powerful religion.
MAURY: Well, such a broadminded man should consider the raised plane of sensation and the stimulated optimism contained in this cocktail.
PARAMORE: (Taking the drink, rather defiantly) Thanks, I’ll try — one.
MAURY: One? Outrageous! Here we have a class of ‘nineteen ten reunion, and you refuse to be even a little pickled. Come on!
“Here’s a health to King Charles, Here’s a health to King Charles, Bring the bowl that you boast — —”
(PARAMORE joins in with a hearty voice.)
MAURY: Fill the cup, Frederick. You know everything’s subordinated to nature’s purposes with us, and her purpose with you is to make you a rip-roaring tippler.
PARAMORE: If a fellow can drink like a gentleman —
MAURY: What is a gentleman, anyway?
ANTHONY: A man who never has pins under his coat lapel.
MAURY: Nonsense! A man’s social rank is determined by the amount of bread he eats in a sandwich.
DICK: He’s a man who prefers the first edition of a book to the last edition of a newspaper.
RACHAEL: A man who never gives an impersonation of a dope-fiend.
MAURY: An American who can fool an English butler into thinking he’s one.
MURIEL: A man who comes from a good family and went to Yale or Harvard or Princeton, and has money and dances well, and all that.
MAURY: At last — the perfect definition! Cardinal Newman’s is now a back number.
PARAMORE: I think we ought to look on the question more broadmindedly. Was it Abraham