CANDIDA (to Proserpine). You don’t mean to say you’ve been drinking champagne!
PROSERPINE (stubbornly). Yes, I do. I’m only a beer teetotaller, not a champagne teetotaller. I don’t like beer. Are there any letters for me to answer, Mr. Morell?
MORELL. No more tonight.
PROSERPINE. Very well. Goodnight, everybody.
LEXY (gallantly). Had I not better see you home, Miss Garnett?
PROSERPINE. No, thank you. I shan’t trust myself with anybody tonight. I wish I hadn’t taken any of that stuff. (She walks straight out.)
BURGESS (indignantly). Stuff, indeed! That gurl dunno wot champagne is! Pommery and Greeno at twelve and six a bottle. She took two glasses a’most straight hoff.
MORELL (a little anxious about her). Go and look after her, Lexy.
LEXY (alarmed). But if she should really be — Suppose she began to sing in the street, or anything of that sort.
MORELL. Just so: she may. That’s why you’d better see her safely home.
CANDIDA. Do, Lexy: there’s a good fellow. (She shakes his hand and pushes him gently to the door.)
LEXY. It’s evidently my duty to go. I hope it may not be necessary. Goodnight, Mrs. Morell. (To the rest.) Goodnight. (He goes. Candida shuts the door.)
BURGESS. He was gushin’ with hextra piety hisself arter two sips. People carn’t drink like they huseter. (Dismissing the subject and bustling away from the hearth.) Well, James: it’s time to lock up. Mr. Morchbanks: shall I ‘ave the pleasure of your company for a bit of the way home?
MARCHBANKS (affrightedly). Yes: I’d better go. .(He hurries across to the door; but Candida places herself before it, barring his way.)
CANDIDA (with quiet authority). You sit down. You’re not going yet.
MARCHBANKS (quailing). No: I — I didn’t mean to. (He comes back into the room and sits down abjectly on the sofa.)
CANDIDA. Mr. Marchbanks will stay the night with us, papa.
BURGESS. Oh, well, I’ll say goodnight. So long, James. (He shakes hands with Morell and goes on to Eugene.) Make ’em give you a night light by your bed, Mr. Morchbanks: it’ll comfort you if you wake up in the night with a touch of that complaint of yores. Goodnight.
MARCHBANKS. Thank you: I will. Goodnight, Mr. Burgess. (They shake hands and Burgess goes to the door.)
CANDIDA (intercepting Morell, who is following Burgess). Stay here, dear: I’ll put on papa’s coat for him. (She goes out with Burgess.)
MARCHBANKS. Morell: there’s going to be a terrible scene. Aren’t you afraid?
MORELL. Not in the least.
MARCHBANKS. I never envied you your courage before. (He rises timidly and puts his hand appealingly on Morell’s forearm.) Stand by me, won’t you?
MORELL (casting him off gently, but resolutely). Each for himself, Eugene. She must choose between us now. (He goes to the other side of the room as Candida returns. Eugene sits down again on the sofa like a guilty schoolboy on his best behaviour.)
CANDIDA (between them, addressing Eugene). Are you sorry?
MARCHBANKS (earnestly). Yes, heartbroken.
CANDIDA. Well, then, you are forgiven. Now go off to bed like a good little boy: I want to talk to James about you.
MARCHBANKS (rising in great consternation). Oh, I can’t do that, Morell. I must be here. I’ll not go away. Tell her.
CANDIDA (with quick suspicion). Tell me what? (His eyes avoid hers furtively. She turns and mutely transfers the question to Morell.)
MORELL (bracing himself for the catastrophe). I have nothing to tell her, except (here his voice deepens to a measured and mournful tenderness) that she is my greatest treasure on earth — if she is really mine.
CANDIDA (coldly, offended by his yielding to his orator’s instinct and treating her as if she were the audience at the Guild of St. Matthew). I am sure Eugene can say no less, if that is all.
MARCHBANKS (discouraged). Morell: she’s laughing at us.
MORELL (with a quick touch of temper). There is nothing to laugh at. Are you laughing at us, Candida?
CANDIDA (with quiet anger). Eugene is very quickwitted, James. I hope I am going to laugh; but I am not sure that I am not going to be very angry. (She goes to the fireplace, and stands there leaning with her arm on the mantelpiece and her foot on the fender, whilst Eugene steals to Morell and plucks him by the sleeve.)
MARCHBANKS (whispering). Stop Morell. Don’t let us say anything.
MORELL (pushing Eugene away without deigning to look at him). I hope you don’t mean that as a threat, Candida.
CANDIDA (with emphatic warning). Take care, James. Eugene: I asked you to go. Are you going?
MORELL (putting his foot down). He shall not go. I wish him to remain.
MARCHBANKS. I’ll go. I’ll do whatever you want. (He turns to the door.)
CANDIDA. Stop! (He obeys.) Didn’t you hear James say he wished you to stay? James is master here. Don’t you know that?
MARCHBANKS (flushing with a young poet’s rage against tyranny). By what right is he master?
CANDIDA (quietly). Tell him, James.
MORELL (taken aback). My dear: I don’t know of any right that makes me master. I assert no such right.
CANDIDA (with infinite reproach). You don’t know! Oh, James, James! (To Eugene, musingly.) I wonder do you understand, Eugene! No: you’re too young. Well, I give you leave to stay — to stay and learn. (She comes away from the hearth and places herself between them.) Now, James: what’s the matter? Come: tell me.
MARCHBANKS (whispering tremulously across to him). Don’t.
CANDIDA. Come. Out with it!
MORELL (slowly). I meant to prepare your mind carefully, Candida, so as to prevent misunderstanding.
CANDIDA. Yes, dear: I am sure you did. But never mind: I shan’t misunderstand.
MORELL. Well — er — (He hesitates, unable to find the long explanation which he supposed to be available.)
CANDIDA. Well?
MORELL (baldly). Eugene declares that you are in love with him.
MARCHBANKS (frantically). No, no, no, no, never. I did not, Mrs. Morell: it’s not true. I said I loved you, and that he didn’t. I said that I understood you, and that he couldn’t. And it was not after what passed there before the fire that I spoke: it was not, on my word. It was this morning.
CANDIDA (enlightened). This morning!
MARCHBANKS. Yes. (He looks at her, pleading for credence, and then adds, simply) That was what was the matter with my collar.
CANDIDA (after a pause; for she does not take in his meaning at once). His collar! (She turns to Morell, shocked.) Oh, James: did you — (she stops)?
MORELL (ashamed). You know, Candida, that I have a temper to struggle with. And he said (shuddering) that you despised me in your heart.
CANDIDA (turning quickly on Eugene). Did you say that?
MARCHBANKS (terrified). No!
CANDIDA (severely). Then James has just told me a falsehood. Is that what you mean?
MARCHBANKS. No, no: I — I — (blurting out the explanation desperately) — it was David’s wife. And it wasn’t at home: it was when she saw him dancing before all the people.
MORELL