MORELL. [Taken aback by Candida’s vigor, and by no means relishing the sense of being rescued by her from another man.] Gently, Candida, gently. I am able to take care of myself.
CANDIDA. [Petting him.] Yes, dear: of course you are. But you mustn’t be annoyed and made miserable.
MARCHBANKS. [Almost in tears, turning to the door.] I’ll go.
CANDIDA. Oh, you needn’t go: I can’t turn you out at this time of night. [Vehemently.] Shame on you! For shame!
MARCHBANKS. [Desperately.] But what have I done?
CANDIDA. I know what you have done—as well as if I had been here all the time. Oh, it was unworthy! You are like a child: you cannot hold your tongue.
MARCHBANKS. I would die ten times over sooner than give you a moment’s pain.
CANDIDA. [With infinite contempt for this puerility.] Much good your dying would do me!
MORELL. Candida, my dear: this altercation is hardly quite seemingly. It is a matter between two men; and I am the right person to settle it.
CANDIDA. Two men! Do you call that a man? [To Eugene.] You bad boy!
MARCHBANKS. [Gathering a whimsically affectionate courage from the scolding.] If I am to be scolded like this, I must make a boy’s excuse. He began it. And he’s bigger than I am.
CANDIDA. [Losing confidence a little as her concern for Morell’s dignity takes the alarm.] That can’t be true. [To Morell.] You didn’t begin it, James, did you?
MORELL. [Contemptuously.] No.
MARCHBANKS. [Indignant.] Oh!
MORELL. [To Eugene.] You began it—this morning. [Candida, instantly connecting this with his mysterious allusion in the afternoon to something told him by Eugene in the morning, looks quickly at him, wrestling with the enigma. Morell proceeds with the emphasis of offended superiority.] But your other point is true. I am certainly the bigger of the two, and, I hope, the stronger, Candida. So you had better leave the matter in my hands.
CANDIDA. [Again soothing him.] Yes, dear; but—[Troubled.] I don’t understand about this morning.
MORELL. [Gently snubbing her.] You need not understand, my dear.
CANDIDA. But, James, I—[The street bell rings.] Oh, bother! Here they all come. [She goes out to let them in.]
MARCHBANKS. [Running to Morell .] Oh, Morell, isn’t it dreadful? She’s angry with us: she hates me. What shall I do?
MORELL. [With quaint desperation, clutching himself by the hair.] Eugene: my head is spinning round. I shall begin to laugh presently. [He walks up and down the middle of the room.]
MARCHBANKS. [Following him anxiously.] No, no: she’ll think I’ve thrown you into hysterics. Don’t laugh. [Boisterous voices and laughter are heard approaching. Lexy Mill, his eyes sparkling, and his bearing denoting unwonted elevation of spirit, enters with Burgess, who is greasy and self-complacent, but has all his wits about him. Miss Garnett, with her smartest hat and jacket on, follows them; but though her eyes are brighter than before, she is evidently a prey to misgiving. She places herself with her back to her typewriting table, with one hand on it to rest herself, passes the other across her forehead as if she were a little tired and giddy. Marchbanks relapses into shyness and edges away into the corner near the window, where Morell’s books are.]
MILL. [Exhilarated.] Morell: I must congratulate you. [Grasping his hand.] What a noble, splendid, inspired address you gave us! You surpassed yourself.
BURGESS. So you did, James. It fair kep’ me awake to the last word. Didn’t it, Miss Garnett?
PROSERPINE. [Worriedly.] Oh, I wasn’t minding you: I was trying to make notes. [She takes out her note-book, and looks at her stenography, which nearly makes her cry.]
MORELL. Did I go too fast, Pross?
PROSERPINE. Much too fast. You know I can’t do more than a hundred words a minute. [She relieves her feelings by throwing her note-book angrily beside her machine, ready for use next morning.]
MORELL. [Soothingly.] Oh, well, well, never mind, never mind, never mind. Have you all had supper?
LEXY. Mr. Burgess has been kind enough to give us a really splendid supper at the Belgrave.
BURGESS. [With effusive magnanimity.] Don’t mention it, Mr. Mill. [Modestly.] You’re ’arty welcome to my little treat.
PROSERPINE. We had champagne! I never tasted it before. I feel quite giddy.
MORELL. [Surprised.] A champagne supper! That was very handsome. Was it my eloquence that produced all this extravagance?
LEXY. [Rhetorically.] Your eloquence, and Mr. Burgess’s goodness of heart. [With a fresh burst of exhilaration.] And what a very fine fellow the chairman is, Morell! He came to supper with us.
MORELL. [With long drawn significance, looking at Burgess.] O-o-o-h, the chairman. Now I understand. [Burgess, covering a lively satisfaction in his diplomatic cunning with a deprecatory cough, retires to the hearth. Lexy folds his arms and leans against the cellaret in a high-spirited attitude. Candida comes in with glasses, lemons, and a jug of hot water on a tray.]
CANDIDA. Who will have some lemonade? You know our rules: total abstinence. [She puts the tray on the table, and takes up the lemon squeezers, looking enquiringly round at them.]
MORELL. No use, dear. They’ve all had champagne. Pross has broken her pledge.
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 to-night.
PROSERPINE. Very well. Good-night, everybody.
LEXY. [Gallantly.] Had I not better see you home, Miss Garnett?
PROSERPINE. No, thank you. I shan’t trust myself with anybody to-night. 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. Good-night, Mrs. Morell. [To the rest.] Good-night. [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 good-night. 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. Good-night.