MARCHBANKS. Misery! I am the happiest of men. I desire nothing now but her happiness. (With dreamy enthusiasm.) Oh, Morell, let us both give her up. Why should she have to choose between a wretched little nervous disease like me, and a pigheaded parson like you? Let us go on a pilgrimage, you to the east and I to the west, in search of a worthy lover for her — some beautiful archangel with purple wings —
MORELL. Some fiddlestick. Oh, if she is mad enough to leave me for you, who will protect her? Who will help her? who will work for her? who will be a father to her children? (He sits down distractedly on the sofa, with his elbows on his knees and his head propped on his clenched fists.)
MARCHBANKS (snapping his fingers wildly). She does not ask those silly questions. It is she who wants somebody to protect, to help, to work for — somebody to give her children to protect, to help and to work for. Some grown up man who has become as a little child again. Oh, you fool, you fool, you triple fool! I am the man, Morell: I am the man. (He dances about excitedly, crying.) You don’t understand what a woman is. Send for her, Morell: send for her and let her choose between — (The door opens and Candida enters. He stops as if petrified.)
CANDIDA (amazed, on the threshold). What on earth are you at, Eugene?
MARCHBANKS (oddly). James and I are having a preaching match; and he is getting the worst of it. (Candida looks quickly round at Morell. Seeing that he is distressed, she hurries down to him, greatly vexed, speaking with vigorous reproach to Marchbanks.)
CANDIDA. You have been annoying him. Now I won’t have it, Eugene: do you hear? (Putting her hand on Morell’s shoulder, and quite forgetting her wifely tact in her annoyance.) My boy shall not be worried: I will protect him.
MORELL (rising proudly). Protect!
CANDIDA (not heeding him — to Eugene). What have you been saying?
MARCHBANKS (appalled). Nothing —
CANDIDA. Eugene! Nothing?
MARCHBANKS (piteously). I mean — I — I’m very sorry. I won’t do it again: indeed I won’t. I’ll let him alone.
MORELL (indignantly, with an aggressive movement towards Eugene). Let me alone! You young —
CANDIDA (Stopping him). Sh — no, let me deal with him, James.
MARCHBANKS. Oh, you’re not angry with me, are you?
CANDIDA (severely). Yes, I am — very angry. I have a great mind to pack you out of the house.
MORELL (taken aback by Candida’s vigor, and by no means relishing the sense of being rescued by her from another man). Gently, Candida, gently. I am able to take care of myself.
CANDIDA (petting him). Yes, dear: of course you are. But you mustn’t be annoyed and made miserable.
MARCHBANKS (almost in tears, turning to the door). I’ll go.
CANDIDA. Oh, you needn’t go: I can’t turn you out at this time of night. (Vehemently.) Shame on you! For shame!
MARCHBANKS (desperately). But what have I done?
CANDIDA. I know what you have done — as well as if I had been here all the time. Oh, it was unworthy! You are like a child: you cannot hold your tongue.
MARCHBANKS. I would die ten times over sooner than give you a moment’s pain.
CANDIDA (with infinite contempt for this puerility). Much good your dying would do me!
MORELL. Candida, my dear: this altercation is hardly quite seemingly. It is a matter between two men; and I am the right person to settle it.
CANDIDA. Two MEN! Do you call that a man? (To Eugene.) You bad boy!
MARCHBANKS (gathering a whimsically affectionate courage from the scolding). If I am to be scolded like this, I must make a boy’s excuse. He began it. And he’s bigger than I am.
CANDIDA (losing confidence a little as her concern for Morell’s dignity takes the alarm). That can’t be true. (To Morell.) You didn’t begin it, James, did you?
MORELL (contemptuously). No.
MARCHBANKS (indignant). Oh!
MORELL (to Eugene). YOU began it — this morning. (Candida, instantly connecting this with his mysterious allusion in the afternoon to something told him by Eugene in the morning, looks quickly at him, wrestling with the enigma. Morell proceeds with the emphasis of offended superiority.) But your other point is true. I am certainly the bigger of the two, and, I hope, the stronger, Candida. So you had better leave the matter in my hands.
CANDIDA (again soothing him). Yes, dear; but — (Troubled.) I don’t understand about this morning.
MORELL (gently snubbing her). You need not understand, my dear.
CANDIDA. But, James, I — (The street bell rings.) Oh, bother! Here they all come. (She goes out to let them in.)
MARCHBANKS (running to Morell ). Oh, Morell, isn’t it dreadful? She’s angry with us: she hates me. What shall I do?
MORELL (with quaint desperation, clutching himself by the hair). Eugene: my head is spinning round. I shall begin to laugh presently. (He walks up and down the middle of the room.)
MARCHBANKS (following him anxiously). No, no: she’ll think I’ve thrown you into hysterics. Don’t laugh. (Boisterous voices and laughter are heard approaching. Lexy Mill, his eyes sparkling, and his bearing denoting unwonted elevation of spirit, enters with Burgess, who is greasy and self-complacent, but has all his wits about him. Miss Garnett, with her smartest hat and jacket on, follows them; but though her eyes are brighter than before, she is evidently a prey to misgiving. She places herself with her back to her typewriting table, with one hand on it to rest herself, passes the other across her forehead as if she were a little tired and giddy. Marchbanks relapses into shyness and edges away into the corner near the window, where Morell’s books are.)
MILL (exhilaratedly). Morell: I MUST congratulate you. (Grasping his hand.) What a noble, splendid, inspired address you gave us! You surpassed yourself.
BURGESS. So you did, James. It fair kep’ me awake to the last word. Didn’t it, Miss Garnett?
PROSERPINE (worriedly). Oh, I wasn’t minding you: I was trying to make notes. (She takes out her notebook, and looks at her stenography, which nearly makes her cry.)
MORELL. Did I go too fast, Pross?
PROSERPINE. Much too fast. You know I can’t do more than a hundred words a minute. (She relieves her feelings by throwing her notebook angrily beside her machine, ready for use next morning.)
MORELL (soothingly). Oh, well, well, never mind, never mind, never mind. Have you all had supper?
LEXY. Mr. Burgess has been kind enough to give us a really splendid supper at the Belgrave.
BURGESS (with effusive magnanimity). Don’t mention it, Mr. Mill. (Modestly.) You’re ‘arty welcome to my little treat.
PROSERPINE. We had champagne! I never tasted it before. I feel quite giddy.
MORELL (surprised). A champagne supper! That was very handsome. Was it my eloquence that produced all this extravagance?
MILL (rhetorically). Your eloquence, and Mr. Burgess’s goodness of heart. (With a fresh burst of exhilaration.) And what a very fine fellow the chairman is, Morell! He came to supper with us.
MORELL (with long drawn significance, looking at Burgess). O-o-o-h, the chairman. NOW I understand.
(Burgess, covering a lively satisfaction in his diplomatic cunning with a deprecatory cough, retires to the hearth. Lexy folds his arms and leans against the cellaret in a high-spirited attitude. Candida comes in with glasses, lemons, and a jug of hot water on a tray.)
CANDIDA. Who will have some lemonade? You know our rules: total abstinence.