CHARTERIS. I forgot. I beg your pardon, Craven, old chap (slaps her on the shoulder).
SYLVIA. That’s better — a little overdone, but better.
JULIA. Don’t be a fool, Silly.
SYLVIA. Remember, Julia, if you please, that here we are members of the club, not sisters. I don’t take liberties with you here on family grounds: don’t you take any with me. (She goes to the settee and resumes her former place.)
CHARTERIS. Quite right, Craven. Down with the tyranny of the elder sister!
JULIA. You ought to know better than to encourage a child to make herself ridiculous, Leonard, even at my expense.
CHARTERIS (seating himself on the edge of the table). Your lunch will be cold, Julia. (Julia is about to retort furiously when she is checked by the reappearance of Cuthbertson at the left hand door.)
CUTHBERTSON. What has become of you, Miss Craven? Your father is getting quite uneasy. We’re all waiting for you.
JULIA. So I have just been reminded, thank you. (She goes out angrily past him, Sylvia looking round to see.)
CUTHBERTSON (looking first after her, then at Charteris). More neurasthenia. (He follows her.)
SYLVIA (jumping up on her knees on the settee and speaking over the back of it). What’s up, Charteris? Julia been making love to you?
CHARTERIS (speaking to her over his shoulder). No. Blowing me up for making love to Grace.
SYLVIA. Serve you right. You are an awful devil for philandering.
CHARTERIS (calmly). Do you consider it good club form to talk that way to a man who might nearly be your father?
SYLVIA (knowingly). Oh, I know you, my lad.
CHARTERIS. Then you know that I never pay any special attention to any woman.
SYLVIA (thoughtfully). Do you know, Leonard, I really believe you. I don’t think you care a bit more for one woman than for another.
CHARTERIS. You mean I don’t care a bit less for one woman than another.
SYLVIA. That makes it worse. But what I mean is that you never bother about their being only women: you talk to them just as you do to me or any other fellow. That’s the secret of your success. You can’t think how sick they get of being treated with the respect due to their sex.
CHARTERIS. Ah, if Julia only had your wisdom, Craven! (He gets off the table with a sigh and perches himself reflectively on the stepladder.)
SYLVIA. She can’t take things easy, can she, old man? But don’t you be afraid of breaking her heart: she gets over her little tragedies. We found that out at home when our great sorrow came.
CHARTERIS. What was that?
SYLVIA. I mean when we learned that poor papa had Paramore’s disease. But it was too late to inoculate papa. All they could do was to prolong his life for two years more by putting him on a strict diet. Poor old boy! they cut off his liquor; and he’s not allowed to eat meat.
CHARTERIS. Your father appears to me to be uncommonly well.
SYLVIA. Yes, you would think he was a great deal better. But the microbes are at work, slowly but surely. In another year it will be all over. Poor old Dad! it’s unfeeling to talk about him in this attitude: I must sit down properly. (She comes down from the settee and takes the chair near the bookstand.) I should like papa to live for ever just to take the conceit out of Paramore. I believe he’s in love with Julia.
CHARTERIS (starting up excitedly). In love with Julia! A ray of hope on the horizon! Do you really mean it?
SYLVIA. I should think I do. Why do you suppose he’s hanging about the club to-day in a beautiful new coat and tie instead of attending to his patients? That lunch with Julia will finish him. He’ll ask Daddy’s consent before they come back — I’ll bet you three to one he will, in anything you please.
CHARTERIS. Gloves?
SYLVIA. No: cigarettes.
CHARTERIS. Done! But what does she think about it? Does she give him any encouragement?
SYLVIA. Oh, the usual thing. Enough to keep any other woman from getting him.
CHARTERIS. Just so. I understand. Now listen to me: I am going to speak as a philosopher. Julia is jealous of everybody — everybody. If she saw you flirting with Paramore she’d begin to value him directly. You might play up a little, Craven, for my sake — eh?
SYLVIA (rising). You’re too awful, Leonard. For shame? However, anything to oblige a fellow Ibsenite. I’ll bear your affair in mind. But I think it would be more effective if you got Grace to do it.
CHARTERIS. Think so? Hm! perhaps you’re right.
PAGE BOY (outside as before). Dr. Paramore, Dr. Paramore, Dr. Paramore —
SYLVIA. They ought to get that boy’s voice properly cultivated: it’s a disgrace to the club. (She goes into the recess on Ibsen’s left. The page enters carrying the British Medical Journal.)
CHARTERIS (calling to the page). Dr. Paramore is in the dining room.
PAGE BOY. Thank you, sir. (He is about to go into the dining room when Sylvia swoops on him.)
SYLVIA. Here: where are you taking that paper? It belongs to this room.
PAGE BOY. It’s Dr. Paramore’s particular orders, miss. The British Medical Journal has always to be brought to him dreckly it comes.
SYLVIA. What cheek? Charteris: oughtn’t we to stop this on principle?
CHARTERIS. Certainly not. Principle’s the poorest reason I know for making yourself nasty.
SYLVIA. Bosh! Ibsen!
CHARTERIS (to the page). Off with you, my boy: Dr. Paramore’s waiting breathless with expectation.
PAGE BOY (seriously). Indeed, sir. (He hurries off.)
CHARTERIS. That boy will make his way in this country. He has no sense of humour. (Grace comes in. Her dress, very convenient and businesslike, is made to please herself and serve her own purposes without the slightest regard to fashion, though by no means without a careful concern for her personal elegance. She enters briskly, like an habitually busy woman.)
SYLVIA (running to her). Here you are at last Tranfield, old girl. I’ve been waiting for you this last hour. I’m starving.
GRACE. All right, dear. (To Charteris.) Did you get my letter?
CHARTERIS. Yes. I wish you wouldn’t write on those confounded blue letter cards.
SYLVIA (to Grace). Shall I go down first and secure a table?
CHARTERIS (taking the reply out of Grace’s mouth). Do, old boy.
SYLVIA. Don’t be too long. (She goes into the dining room.)
GRACE. Well?
CHARTERIS. I’m afraid to face you after last night. Can you imagine a more horrible scene? Don’t you hate the very sight of me after it?
GRACE. Oh, no.
CHARTERIS. Then you ought to. Ugh! it was hideous — an insult — an outrage. A nice end to all my plans for making you happy — for making you an exception to all the women who swear I have made them miserable!
GRACE (sitting down placidly). I am not at all miserable. I’m sorry; but I shan’t break my heart.
CHARTERIS. No: yours is a thoroughbred heart: you don’t scream and cry every time it’s pinched. That’s why you are the only possible woman for me.
GRACE (shaking her head). Not now. Never any more.
CHARTERIS. Never! What do you mean?
GRACE. What I say, Leonard.
CHARTERIS.