VIVIE. Put the rifle away, Frank: it’s quite unnecessary.
FRANK. Quite right, Viv. Much more sportsmanlike to catch him in a trap. [Crofts, understanding the insult, makes a threatening movement]. Crofts: there are fifteen cartridges in the magazine here; and I am a dead shot at the present distance and at an object of your size.
CROFTS. Oh, you needn’t be afraid. I’m not going to touch you.
FRANK. Ever so magnanimous of you under the circumstances! Thank you.
CROFTS. I’ll just tell you this before I go. It may interest you, since youre so fond of one another. Allow me, Mister Frank, to introduce you to your halfsister, the eldest daughter of the Reverend Samuel Gardner. Miss Vivie: you half-brother. Good morning! [He goes out through the gate and along the road].
FRANK [after a pause of stupefaction, raising the rifle] Youll testify before the coroner that it’s an accident, Viv. [He takes aim at the retreating figure of Crofts. Vivie seizes the muzzle and pulls it round against her breast].
VIVIE. Fire now. You may.
FRANK [dropping his end of the rifle hastily] Stop! take care. [She lets it go. It falls on the turf]. Oh, you’ve given your little boy such a turn. Suppose it had gone off! ugh! [He sinks on the garden seat, overcome].
VIVIE. Suppose it had: do you think it would not have been a relief to have some sharp physical pain tearing through me?
FRANK [coaxingly] Take it ever so easy, dear Viv. Remember: even if the rifle scared that fellow into telling the truth for the first time in his life, that only makes us the babes in the woods in earnest. [He holds out his arms to her]. Come and be covered up with leaves again.
VIVIE [with a cry of disgust] Ah, not that, not that. You make all my flesh creep.
FRANK. Why, whats the matter?
VIVIE. Goodbye. [She makes for the gate].
FRANK [jumping up] Hallo! Stop! Viv! Viv! [She turns in the gateway] Where are you going to? Where shall we find you?
VIVIE. At Honoria Fraser’s chambers, 67 Chancery Lane, for the rest of my life. [She goes off quickly in the opposite direction to that taken by Crofts].
FRANK. But I say — wait — dash it! [He runs after her].
ACT IV
[Honoria Fraser’s chambers in Chancery Lane. An office at the top of New Stone Buildings, with a plate-glass window, distempered walls, electric light, and a patent stove. Saturday afternoon. The chimneys of Lincoln’s Inn and the western sky beyond are seen through the window. There is a double writing table in the middle of the room, with a cigar box, ash pans, and a portable electric reading lamp almost snowed up in heaps of papers and books. This table has knee holes and chairs right and left and is very untidy. The clerk’s desk, closed and tidy, with its high stool, is against the wall, near a door communicating with the inner rooms. In the opposite wall is the door leading to the public corridor. Its upper panel is of opaque glass, lettered in black on the outside, FRASER AND WARREN. A baize screen hides the corner between this door and the window.]
[Frank, in a fashionable light-colored coaching suit, with his stick, gloves, and white hat in his hands, is pacing up and down in the office. Somebody tries the door with a key.]
FRANK [calling] Come in. It’s not locked.
[Vivie comes in, in her hat and jacket. She stops and stares at him.]
VIVIE [sternly] What are you doing here?
FRANK. Waiting to see you. I’ve been here for hours. Is this the way you attend to your business? [He puts his hat and stick on the table, and perches himself with a vault on the clerk’s stool, looking at her with every appearance of being in a specially restless, teasing, flippant mood].
VIVIE. I’ve been away exactly twenty minutes for a cup of tea. [She takes off her hat and jacket and hangs them behind the screen]. How did you get in?
FRANK. The staff had not left when I arrived. He’s gone to play cricket on Primrose Hill. Why don’t you employ a woman, and give your sex a chance?
VIVIE. What have you come for?
FRANK [springing off the stool and coming close to her] Viv: lets go and enjoy the Saturday half-holiday somewhere, like the staff.
What do you say to Richmond, and then a music hall, and a jolly supper?
VIVIE. Can’t afford it. I shall put in another six hours work before I go to bed.
FRANK. Can’t afford it, can’t we? Aha! Look here. [He takes out a handful of sovereigns and makes them chink]. Gold, Viv: gold!
VIVIE. Where did you get it?
FRANK. Gambling, Viv: gambling. Poker.
VIVIE. Pah! It’s meaner than stealing it. No: I’m not coming. [She sits down to work at the table, with her back to the glass door, and begins turning over the papers].
FRANK [remonstrating piteously] But, my dear Viv, I want to talk to you ever so seriously.
VIVIE. Very well: sit down in Honoria’s chair and talk here. I like ten minutes chat after tea. [He murmurs]. No use groaning: I’m inexorable. [He takes the opposite seat disconsolately]. Pass that cigar box, will you?
FRANK [pushing the cigar box across] Nasty womanly habit. Nice men don’t do it any longer.
VIVIE. Yes: they object to the smell in the office; and we’ve had to take to cigarets. See! [She opens the box and takes out a cigaret, which she lights. She offers him one; but he shakes his head with a wry face. She settles herself comfortably in her chair, smoking]. Go ahead.
FRANK. Well, I want to know what you’ve done — what arrangements you’ve made.
VIVIE. Everything was settled twenty minutes after I arrived here. Honoria has found the business too much for her this year; and she was on the point of sending for me and proposing a partnership when I walked in and told her I hadn’t a farthing in the world. So I installed myself and packed her off for a fortnight’s holiday. What happened at Haslemere when I left?
FRANK. Nothing at all. I said youd gone to town on particular business.
VIVIE. Well?
FRANK. Well, either they were too flabbergasted to say anything, or else Crofts had prepared your mother. Anyhow, she didn’t say anything; and Crofts didn’t say anything; and Praddy only stared. After tea they got up and went; and I’ve not seen them since.
VIVIE [nodding placidly with one eye on a wreath of smoke] Thats all right.
FRANK [looking round disparagingly] Do you intend to stick in this confounded place?
VIVIE [blowing the wreath decisively away, and sitting straight up] Yes. These two days have given me back all my strength and self-possession. I will never take a holiday again as long as I live.
FRANK [with a very wry face] Mps! You look quite happy. And as hard as nails.
VIVIE [grimly] Well for me that I am!
FRANK [rising] Look here, Viv: we must have an explanation. We parted the other day under a complete misunderstanding. [He sits on the table, close to her].
VIVIE [putting away the cigaret] Well: clear it up.
FRANK. You remember what Crofts said.
VIVIE. Yes.
FRANK. That revelation was supposed to bring about a complete change in the nature of our feeling for one another. It placed us on the footing