CRAVEN (outside). All right.
CUTHBERTSON (outside). Take care of the stairs; they’re rather steep. Good night. (The outside door shuts; and Cuthbertson returns. Instead of entering, he stands in the doorway with one hand in the breast of his waistcoat, eyeing Charteris sternly.)
CHARTERIS. What’s the matter?
CUTHBERTSON (sternly). Charteris: what’s been going on here? I insist on knowing. Grace has not gone to bed: I have seen and spoken with her. What is it all about?
CHARTERIS. Ask your theatrical experience, Cuthbertson. A man, of course.
CUTHBERTSON (coming forward and confronting him). Don’t play the fool with me, Charteris: I’m too old a hand to be amused by it. I ask you, seriously, what’s the matter?
CHARTERIS. I tell you, seriously, I’m the matter, Julia wants to marry me: I want to marry Grace. I came here tonight to sweetheart Grace. Enter Julia. Alarums and excursions. Exit Grace. Enter you and Craven. Subterfuges and excuses. Exeunt Craven and Julia. And here we are. That’s the whole story. Sleep over it. Good night. (He leaves.)
CUTHBERTSON (staring after him). Well I’ll be — (The act drop descends.)
ACT II
Next day at noon, in the Library of the Ibsen club. A spacious room, with glass doors right and left. At the back, in the middle, is the fireplace, surmounted by a handsome mantelpiece, with a bust of Ibsen, and decorated inscriptions of the titles of his plays. There are circular recesses at each side of fireplace, with divan seats running round them, and windows at the top, the space between the divan and the window sills being lined with books. A long settee is placed before the fire. Along the back of the settee, and touching it, is a green table, littered with journals. A revolving bookcase stands in the foreground, a little to the left, with an easy chair close to it. On the right, between the door and the recess, is a light library stepladder. Placards inscribed “silence” are conspicuously exhibited here and there.
(Cuthbertson is seated in the easy chair at the revolving bookstand, reading the “Daily Graphic.” Dr. Paramore is on the divan in the right hand recess, reading “The British Medical Journal.” He is young as age is counted in the professions — barely forty. His hair is wearing bald on his forehead; and his dark arched eyebrows, coming rather close together, give him a conscientiously sinister appearance. He wears the frock coat and cultivates the “bedside manner” of the fashionable physician with scrupulous conventionality. Not at all a happy or frank man, but not consciously unhappy nor intentionally insincere, and highly self satisfied intellectually.
Sylvia Craven is sitting in the middle of the settee before the fire, only the back of her head being visible. She is reading a volume of Ibsen. She is a girl of eighteen, small and trim, wearing a smart tailor-made dress, rather short, and a Newmarket jacket, showing a white blouse with a light silk sash and a man’s collar and watch chain so arranged as to look as like a man’s waistcoat and shirtfront as possible without spoiling the prettiness of the effect. A Page Boy’s voice, monotonously calling for Dr. Paramore, is heard approaching outside on the right.)
PAGE (outside). Dr. Paramore, Dr. Paramore, Dr. Paramore. (He enters carrying a salver with a card on it.) Dr. Par —
PARAMORE (sharply, sitting up). Here, boy. (The boy presents the salver. Paramore takes the card and looks at it.) All right: I’ll come down to him. (The boy goes. Paramore rises, and comes from the recess, throwing his paper on the table.) Good morning, Mr. Cuthbertson (stopping to pull out his cuffs and shake his coat straight) Mrs. Tranfield quite well, I hope?
SYLVIA (turning her head indignantly). Sh — sh — sh! (Paramore turns, surprised. Cuthbertson rises energetically and looks across the bookstand to see who is the author of this impertinence.)
PARAMORE (to Sylvia — stiffly). I beg your pardon, Miss Craven: I did not mean to disturb you.
SYLVIA (flustered and self assertive). You may talk as much as you like if you will only have the common consideration to first ask whether the other people object. What I protest against is your assumption that my presence doesn’t matter because I’m only a female member. That’s all. Now go on, pray: you don’t disturb me in the least. (She turns to the fire, and again buries herself in Ibsen.)
CUTHBERTSON (with emphatic dignity). No gentleman would have dreamt of objecting to our exchanging a few words, madam. (She takes no notice. He resumes angrily.) As a matter of fact I was about to say to Dr. Paramore that if he would care to bring his visitor up here, I should not object. The impudence! (Dashes his paper down on the chair.)
PARAMORE. Oh, many thanks; but it’s only an instrument maker.
CUTHBERTSON. Any new medical discoveries, doctor?
PARAMORE. Well, since you ask me, yes — perhaps a most important one. I have discovered something that has hitherto been overlooked — a minute duct in the liver of the guinea pig. Miss Craven will forgive my mentioning it when I say that it may throw an important light on her father’s case. The first thing, of course, is to find out what the duct is there for.
CUTHBERTSON (reverently — feeling that he is in the presence of science). Indeed. How will you do that?
PARAMORE. Oh, easily enough, by simply cutting the duct and seeing what will happen to the guinea pig. (Sylvia rises, horrified.) I shall require a knife specially made to get at it. The man who is waiting for me downstairs has brought me a few handles to try before fitting it and sending it to the laboratory. I am afraid it would not do to bring such weapons up here.
SYLVIA. If you attempt such a thing, Dr. Paramore, I will complain to the committee. The majority of the committee are antivivisectionists. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. (She flounces out at the right hand door.)
PARAMORE (with patient contempt). That’s the sort of thing we scientific men have to put up with nowadays, Mr. Cuthbertson. Ignorance, superstition, sentimentality: they are all one. A guinea pig’s convenience is set above the health and lives of the entire human race.
CUTHBERTSON (vehemently). It’s not ignorance or superstition, Paramore: it’s sheer downright Ibsenism: that’s what it is. I’ve been wanting to sit comfortably at the fire the whole morning; but I’ve never had a chance with that girl there. I couldn’t go and plump myself down on a seat beside her: goodness knows what she’d think I wanted. That’s one of the delights of having women in the club: when they come in here they all want to sit at the fire and adore that bust. I sometimes feel that I should like to take the poker and fetch it a wipe across the nose — ugh!
PARAMORE. I must say I prefer the elder Miss Craven to her sister.
CUTHBERTSON (his eyes lighting up). Ah, Julia! I believe you. A splendid fine creature — every inch a woman. No Ibsenism about her!
PARAMORE. I quite agree with you there, Mr. Cuthbertson. Er — by the way, do you think is Miss Craven attached to Charteris at all?
CUTHBERTSON. What, that fellow! Not he. He hangs about after her; but he’s not man enough for her. A woman of that sort likes a strong, manly, deep-throated, broad-chested man.
PARAMORE (anxiously). Hm, a sort of sporting character, you think?
CUTHBERTSON. Oh, no, no. A scientific man, perhaps, like yourself. But you know what I mean — a MAN. (Strikes himself a sounding blow on the chest.)
PARAMORE. Of course; but Charteris is a man.
CUTHBERTSON. Pah! you don’t see what I mean. (The Page Boy returns with his salver.)
PAGE BOY (calling monotonously as before). Mr. Cuthbertson, Mr. Cuthbertson, Mr. Cuth —
CUTHBERTSON. Here, boy. (He takes a card from the salver.) Bring the gentleman up here. (The boy