MRS. CLANDON (alarmed). Why do you think it a good sign?
VALENTINE (turning near the door). Because I am mortally afraid of her; and it looks as if she were mortally afraid of me. (He turns to go and finds himself face to face with Gloria, who has just entered. She looks steadfastly at him. He stares helplessly at her; then round at Mrs. Clandon; then at Gloria again, completely at a loss.)
GLORIA (white, and controlling herself with difficulty). Mother: is what Dolly told me true?
MRS. CLANDON. What did she tell you, dear?
GLORIA. That you have been speaking about me to this gentleman.
VALENTINE (murmuring). This gentleman! Oh!
MRS. CLANDON (sharply). Mr. Valentine: can you hold your tongue for a moment? (He looks piteously at them; then, with a despairing shrug, goes back to the ottoman and throws his hat on it.)
GLORIA (confronting her mother, with deep reproach). Mother: what right had you to do it?
MRS. CLANDON. I don’t think I have said anything I have no right to say, Gloria.
VALENTINE (confirming her officiously). Nothing. Nothing whatever. (Gloria looks at him with unspeakable indignation.) I beg your pardon. (He sits down ignominiously on the ottoman.)
GLORIA. I cannot believe that any one has any right even to think about things that concern me only. (She turns away from them to conceal a painful struggle with her emotion.)
MRS. CLANDON. My dear, if I have wounded your pride —
GLORIA (turning on them for a moment). My p r i d e! My pride!! Oh, it’s gone: I have learnt now that I have no strength to be proud of. (Turning away again.) But if a woman cannot protect herself, no one can protect her. No one has any right to try — not even her mother. I know I have lost your confidence, just as I have lost this man’s respect; — (She stops to master a sob.)
VALENTINE (under his breath). This man! (Murmuring again.) Oh!
MRS. CLANDON (in an undertone). Pray be silent, sir.
GLORIA (continuing). — but I have at least the right to be left alone in my disgrace. I am one of those weak creatures born to be mastered by the first man whose eye is caught by them; and I must fulfill my destiny, I suppose. At least spare me the humiliation of trying to save me. (She sits down, with her handkerchief to her eyes, at the farther end of the table.)
VALENTINE (jumping up). Look here —
MRS. CLANDON. Mr. Va —
VALENTINE (recklessly). No: I will speak: I’ve been silent for nearly thirty seconds. (He goes up to Gloria.) Miss Clandon —
GLORIA (bitterly). Oh, not Miss Clandon: you have found that it is quite safe to call me Gloria.
VALENTINE. No, I won’t: you’ll throw it in my teeth afterwards and accuse me of disrespect. I say it’s a heartbreaking falsehood that I don’t respect you. It’s true that I didn’t respect your old pride: why should I? It was nothing but cowardice. I didn’t respect your intellect: I’ve a better one myself: it’s a masculine specialty. But when the depths stirred! — when my moment came! — when you made me brave! — ah, then, then, t h e n!
GLORIA. Then you respected me, I suppose.
VALENTINE. No, I didn’t: I adored you. (She rises quickly and turns her back on him.) And you can never take that moment away from me. So now I don’t care what happens. (He comes down the room addressing a cheerful explanation to nobody in particular.) I’m perfectly aware that I’m talking nonsense. I can’t help it. (To Mrs. Clandon.) I love Gloria; and there’s an end of it.
MRS. CLANDON (emphatically). Mr. Valentine: you are a most dangerous man. Gloria: come here. (Gloria, wondering a little at the command, obeys, and stands, with drooping head, on her mother’s right hand, Valentine being on the opposite side. Mrs. Clandon then begins, with intense scorn.) Ask this man whom you have inspired and made brave, how many women have inspired him before (Gloria looks up suddenly with a flash of jealous anger and amazement); how many times he has laid the trap in which he has caught you; how often he has baited it with the same speeches; how much practice it has taken to make him perfect in his chosen part in life as the Duellist of Sex.
VALENTINE. This isn’t fair. You’re abusing my confidence, Mrs. Clandon.
MRS. CLANDON. Ask him, Gloria.
GLORIA (in a flush of rage, going over to him with her fists clenched). Is that true?
VALENTINE. Don’t be angry —
GLORIA (interrupting him implacably). Is it true? Did you ever say that before? Did you ever feel that before — for another woman?
VALENTINE (bluntly). Yes. (Gloria raises her clenched hands.)
MRS. CLANDON (horrified, springing to her side and catching her uplifted arm). Gloria!! My dear! You’re forgetting yourself. (Gloria, with a deep expiration, slowly relaxes her threatening attitude.)
VALENTINE. Remember: a man’s power of love and admiration is like any other of his powers: he has to throw it away many times before he learns what is really worthy of it.
MRS. CLANDON. Another of the old speeches, Gloria. Take care.
VALENTINE (remonstrating). Oh!
GLORIA (to Mrs. Clandon, with contemptuous self-possession). Do you think I need to be warned now? (To Valentine.) You have tried to make me love you.
VALENTINE. I have.
GLORIA. Well, you have succeeded in making me hate you — passionately.
VALENTINE (philosophically). It’s surprising how little difference there is between the two. (Gloria turns indignantly away from him. He continues, to Mrs. Clandon) I know men whose wives love them; and they go on exactly like that.
MRS. CLANDON. Excuse me, Mr. Valentine; but had you not better go?
GLORIA. You need not send him away on my account, mother. He is nothing to me now; and he will amuse Dolly and Phil. (She sits down with slighting indifference, at the end of the table nearest the window.)
VALENTINE (gaily). Of course: that’s the sensible way of looking at it. Come, Mrs. Clandon: you can’t quarrel with a mere butterfly like me.
MRS. CLANDON. I very greatly mistrust you, Mr. Valentine. But I do not like to think that your unfortunate levity of disposition is mere shamelessness and worthlessness; —
GLORIA (to herself, but aloud). It is shameless; and it is worthless.
MRS. CLANDON. — so perhaps we had better send for Phil and Dolly and allow you to end your visit in the ordinary way.
VALENTINE (as if she had paid him the highest compliment). You overwhelm me, Mrs. Clandon. Thank you. (The waiter enters.)
WAITER. Mr. McComas, ma’am.
MRS. CLANDON. Oh, certainly. Bring him in.
WAITER. He wishes to see you in the reception-room, ma’am.
MRS. CLANDON. Why not here?
WAITER. Well, if you will excuse my mentioning it, ma’am, I think Mr. McComas feels that he would get fairer play if he could speak to you away from the younger members of your family, ma’am.
MRS. CLANDON. Tell him they are not here.
WAITER. They are within sight of the door, ma’am; and very watchful, for some reason or other.
MRS. CLANDON (going). Oh, very well: I’ll go to him.
WAITER (holding the door open for her). Thank you, ma’am. (She goes out. He comes back into the room, and meets the eye of Valentine, who wants him to go.) All right, sir. Only the tea-things, sir. (Taking the tray.) Excuse me, sir. Thank you sir. (He goes out.)
VALENTINE