* What beautiful lamps! (In vaudeville production.)
HARRIET. Do you like it? I'm afraid Charles paid an extravagant price.
MAGGIE [to HETTY]. I don't believe it.
MARGARET [sitting down. To HARRIET]. I am sure he must have.
HARRIET [sitting down]. How well you are looking, Margaret.
HETTY. Yes, you are not. There are circles under your eyes.
MAGGIE [to HETTY]. I haven't eaten since breakfast and I'm hungry.
MARGARET [to HARRIET]. How well you are looking, too.
MAGGIE [to HETTY]. You have hard lines about your lips, are you happy?
HETTY [to HARRIET]. Don't let her know that I'm unhappy.
HARRIET [to MARGARET]. Why shouldn't I look well? My life is full,
happy, complete----
MAGGIE. I wonder.
HETTY [in HARRIET'S ear]. Tell her we have an automobile.
MARGARET [to HARRIET]. My life is complete, too.
MAGGIE. My heart is torn with sorrow; my husband cannot make a living.
He will kill himself if he does not get an order for a painting.
MARGARET [laughs]. You must come and see us in our studio. John has been
doing some excellent portraits. He cannot begin to fill his orders.
HETTY [to HARRIET]. Tell her we have an automobile.
HARRIET [to MARGARET]. Do you take lemon in your tea?
MAGGIE. Take cream. It's more filling.
MARGARET [looking nonchalantly at tea things]. No, cream, if you please.
How cozy!
MAGGIE [glaring at tea things]. Only cakes! I could eat them all!
HARRIET [to MARGARET]. How many lumps?
MAGGIE [to MARGARET]. Sugar is nourishing.
MARGARET [to HARRIET], Three, please. I used to drink very sweet coffee
in Turkey and ever since I've----
HETTY. I don't believe you were ever in Turkey.
MAGGIE. I wasn't, but it is none of your business.
HARRIET [pouring tea]. Have you been in Turkey, do tell me about it.
MAGGIE [to MARGARET]. Change the subject.
MARGARET [to HARRIET]. You must go there. You have so much taste in
dress you would enjoy seeing their costumes.
MAGGIE. Isn't she going to pass the cake?
MARGARET [to HARRIET]. John painted several portraits there.
HETTY [to HARRIET]. Why don't you stop her bragging and tell her we have
an automobile?
HARRIET [offers cake across the table to MARGARET]. Cake?
MAGGIE [stands back of MARGARET, shadowing her as HETTY shadows HARRIET.
MAGGIE reaches claws out for the cake and groans with joy]. At last!
[But her claws do not touch the cake.]
MARGARET [with a graceful, nonchalant hand places cake upon her plate
and bites at it slowly and delicately]. Thank you.
HETTY [to HARRIET]. Automobile!
MAGGIE [to MARGARET]. Follow up the costumes with the suggestion that
she would make a good model for John. It isn't too early to begin
getting what you came for.
MARGARET [ignoring MAGGIE]. What delicious cake.
HETTY [excitedly to HARRIET]. There's your chance for the auto.
HARRIET [nonchalantly to MARGARET]. Yes, it is good cake, isn't it?
There are always a great many people buying it at Harper's. I sat in my
automobile fifteen minutes this morning waiting for my chauffeur to get
it.
MAGGIE [to MARGARET]. Make her order a portrait.
MARGARET [to HARRIET]. If you stopped at Harper's you must have noticed
the new gowns at Henderson's. Aren't the shop windows alluring these
days?
HARRIET. Even my chauffeur notices them.
MAGGIE. I know you have an automobile, I heard you the first time.
MARGARET. I notice gowns now with an artist's eye as John does. The one
you have on, my dear, is very paintable.
HETTY. Don't let her see you're anxious to be painted.
HARRIET [nonchalantly]. Oh, it's just a little model.
MAGGIE [to MARGARET]. Don't seem anxious to get the order.
MARGARET [nonchalantly]. Perhaps it isn't the gown itself but the way
you wear it that pleases the eye. Some people can wear anything with
grace.
HETTY. Yes, I'm very graceful.
HARRIET [to MARGARET]. You flatter me, my dear.
MARGARET. On the contrary, Harriet, I have an intense admiration for
you. I remember how beautiful you were--as a girl. In fact, I was quite
jealous when John was paying you so much attention.
HETTY. She is gloating because I lost him.
HARRIET. Those were childhood days in a country town.
MAGGIE [to MARGARET]. She's trying to make you feel that John was only a
country boy.
MARGARET. Most great men have come from the country. There is a fair
chance that John will be added to the list.
HETTY. I know it and I am bitterly jealous of you.
HARRIET. Undoubtedly he owes much of his success to you, Margaret, your
experience in economy and your ability to endure hardship. Those first
few years in Paris must have been a struggle.
MAGGIE. She is sneering at your poverty.
MARGARET. Yes, we did find life difficult at first, not the luxurious
start a girl has who marries wealth.
HETTY [to HARRIET]. Deny that you married Charles for his money.
[HARRIET deems it wise to ignore HETTY'S advice.]
MARGARET. But John and I are so congenial in our tastes, that we were
impervious to hardship or unhappiness.
HETTY [in anguish]. Do you love each other? Is it really true?
HARRIET [sweetly]. Did you have all the romance of starving for his art?
MAGGIE [to MARGARET]. She's taunting you. Get even with her.
MARGARET. Not for long. Prince Rier soon discovered John's genius, and
introduced him royally to wealthy Parisians who gave him many orders.
HETTY [to MAGGIE]. Are you telling the truth or are you lying?
HARRIET. If he had so many opportunities there, you must have had great
inducements to come back to the States.
MAGGIE [to HETTY]. We did, but not the kind you think.
MARGARET. John became the rage among Americans travelling in France,
too, and they simply insisted upon his coming here.
HARRIET. Whom is he going to paint here?
MAGGIE [frightened]. What names dare I make up?
MARGARET [calmly]. Just at present Miss Dorothy Ainsworth of Oregon is
posing. You may not know the name, but she is the daughter of a wealthy
miner who found gold in Alaska.
HARRIET. I dare say there are many Western people we have never heard
of.
MARGARET. You must have found social life in New York very interesting,
Harriet, after the simplicity of our home town.
HETTY [to MAGGIE]. There's no need to remind us that our beginnings were
the same.
HARRIET. Of course Charles's family made everything delightful for me.
They are so well connected.
MAGGIE [to MARGARET]. Flatter her.
MARGARET. I heard it mentioned yesterday that you had made yourself very
popular. Some one said you were very clever!
HARRIET [pleased]. Who told you that?
MAGGIE. Nobody!
MARGARET [pleasantly]. Oh, confidences should be suspected--respected,
I mean. They said, too, that you are gaining some reputation as a critic
of art.
HARRIET. I make no pretenses.
MARGARET. Are you and Mr. Goodrich interested in the same things, too?
HETTY. No!
HARRIET. Yes, indeed, Charles and I are inseparable.
MAGGIE. I wonder.
HARRIET. Do have another cake.
MAGGIE [in relief]. Oh, yes. [Again her claws extend but do not touch
the cake.]
MARGARET [takes cake delicately]. I really shouldn't--after my big
luncheon. John took me to the Ritz and we are invited to the Bedfords'
for dinner--they have such a magnificent house near the drive--I really
shouldn't, but the cakes are so good.
MAGGIE. Starving!
HARRIET [to MARGARET]. More tea?
MAGGIE. Yes!
MARGARET. No, thank you. How wonderfully life has arranged itself for
you. Wealth, position, a happy marriage, every opportunity to enjoy all
pleasures; beauty, art--how happy you must be.
HETTY [in anguish]. Don't call me happy. I've never been happy since
I gave up John. All these years without him--a future without
him--no--no--I shall win him back--away from you--away from you----
HARRIET [does not see MAGGIE pointing to cream and MARGARET stealing
some]. I sometimes think it is unfair for any one to be as happy as I
am. Charles and I are just as much in love now as when we married. To me
he is just the dearest man in the world.
MAGGIE [passionately]. My John is. I love him so much I could die for
him. I'm going through hunger and want to make him great and he loves
me. He worships me!
MARGARET [leisurely to HARRIET]. I should like to meet Mr. Goodrich.
Bring him to our studio. John has some sketches to show. Not many,
because all the portraits have been purchased by the subjects. He gets
as much as four thousand dollars now.
HETTY [to HARRIET]. Don't pay that much.
HARRIET [to MARGARET]. As much as that?
MARGARET. It is not really too much when one considers that John is in
the foremost rank of artists to-day. A picture painted by him now will
double and treble in value.
MAGGIE. It's all a lie. He is growing weak with despair.
HARRIET. Does he paint all day long?
MAGGIE. No, he draws advertisements for our bread.
MARGARET [to HARRIET]. When you and your husband come to see us,
telephone first----
MAGGIE. Yes, so he can get the advertisements out of the way.
MARGARET. Otherwise you might arrive while he has a sitter, and John
refuses to let me disturb him then.
HETTY. Make her ask for an order.
HARRIET [to MARGARET]. Le Grange offered to paint me for a thousand.
MARGARET. Louis Le Grange's reputation isn't worth more than that.
HARRIET. Well, I've heard his work well mentioned.
MAGGIE. Yes, he is doing splendid work.
MARGARET. Oh, dear me, no. He is only praised by the masses. He is
accepted not at all by artists themselves.
HETTY [anxiously]. Must I really pay the full price?
HARRIET. Le Grange thought I would make a good subject.
MAGGIE [to MARGARET]. Let her fish for it.
MARGARET. Of course you would. Why don't you let Le Grange paint you, if
you trust him?
HETTY. She doesn't seem anxious to have John do it.
HARRIET. But if Le Grange isn't accepted by artists, it would be a waste
of time to pose for him, wouldn't it?
MARGARET. Yes, I think it would.
MAGGIE [passionately to HETTY across back of table]. Give us the order.
John is so despondent he can't endure much longer. Help us! Help me!
Save us!
HETTY [to HARRIET]. Don't seem too eager.
HARRIET. And yet if he charges only a thousand one might consider it.
MARGARET. If you really wish to be painted, why don't you give a little
more and have a portrait really worth while? John might be induced to do
you for a little below his usual price considering that you used to be
such good friends.
HETTY [in glee]. Hurrah!
HARRIET [quietly to MARGARET]. That's very nice of you to suggest--of
course I don't know----
MAGGIE [in fear]. For God's sake, say yes.
MARGARET [quietly to HARRIET]. Of course, I don't know whether John
would. He is very peculiar in these matters. He sets his value on his
work and thinks it beneath him to discuss price.
HETTY [to MAGGIE]. You needn't try to make us feel small.
MARGARET. Still, I might quite delicately mention to him that inasmuch
as you have many influential friends you would be very glad to--to----
MAGGIE [to HETTY]. Finish what I don't want to say.
HETTY [to HARRIET]. Help her out.
HARRIET. Oh, yes, introductions will follow the exhibition of my
portrait. No doubt I----
HETTY [to HARRIET]. Be patronizing.
HARRIET. No doubt I shall be able to introduce your husband to his
advantage.
MAGGIE [relieved]. Saved.
MARGARET. If I find John in a propitious mood I shall take pleasure, for
your sake, in telling him about your beauty. Just as you are sitting now
would be a lovely pose.
MAGGIE [to MARGARET]. We can go now.
HETTY [to HARRIET]. Don't let her think she is doing us a favor.
HARRIET. It will give me pleasure to add my name to your husband's list
of patronesses.
MAGGIE [excitedly to MARGARET]. Run home and tell John the good news.
MARGARET [leisurely to HARRIET]. I little guessed when I came for
a pleasant chat about old times that it would develop into business
arrangements. I had no idea, Harriet, that you had any intention of
being painted. By Le Grange, too. Well, I came just in time to rescue
you.
MAGGIE [to MARGARET]. Run home and tell John. Hurry, hurry!
HETTY [to HARRIET]. You managed the order very neatly. She doesn't
suspect that you wanted it.
HARRIET. Now if I am not satisfied with my portrait I shall blame you,
Margaret, dear. I am relying upon your opinion of John's talent.
MAGGIE [to MARGARET]. She doesn't suspect what you came for. Run home
and tell John!
HARRIET. You always had a brilliant mind, Margaret.
MARGARET. Ah, it is you who flatter, now.
MAGGIE [to MARGARET]. You don't have to stay so long. Hurry home!
HARRIET. Ah, one does not flatter when one tells the truth.
MARGARET [smiles]. I must be going or you will have me completely under
your spell.
HETTY [looks at clock]. Yes, do go. I have to dress for dinner.
HARRIET [to MARGARET]. Oh, don't hurry.
MAGGIE [to HETTY]. I hate you!
MARGARET [to HARRIET]. No, really I must, but I hope we shall see each
other often at the studio. I find you so stimulating.
HETTY [to MAGGIE]. I hate you!
HARRIET [to MARGARET]. It is indeed gratifying to find a kindred spirit.
MAGGIE [to HETTY]. I came for your gold.
MARGARET [to HARRIET]. How delightful it is to know you again.
HETTY [to MAGGIE]. I am going to make you and your husband suffer.
HARRIET. My kind regards to John.
MAGGIE [to HETTY]. He has forgotten all about you.
MARGARET [rises]. He will be so happy to receive them.
HETTY [to MAGGIE]. I can hardly wait to talk to him again.
HARRIET. I shall wait, then, until you send me word?
MARGARET [offering her hand]. I'll speak to John about it as soon as I
can and tell you when to come.
[HARRIET takes MARGARET'S hand affectionately. HETTY and MAGGIE rush at
each other, throw back their veils, and fling their speeches fiercely at
each other.]