MRS. JUNO. My LATE husband! What do you mean? [clutching him,
horror-stricken]. Don't tell me he's dead.
GREGORY [rising, equally appalled]. Don't tell me he's alive.
MRS. JUNO. Oh, don't frighten me like this. Of course he's
alive--unless you've heard anything.
GREGORY. The first day we met--on the boat--you spoke to me of your
poor dear husband.
MRS. JUNO [releasing him, quite reassured]. Is that all?
GREGORY. Well, afterwards you called him poor Tops. Always poor Tops,
Our poor dear Tops. What could I think?
MRS. JUNO [sitting down again]. I wish you hadn't given me such a shock
about him; for I haven't been treating him at all well. Neither have
you.
GREGORY [relapsing into his seat, overwhelmed]. And you mean to tell me
you're not a widow!
MRS. JUNO. Gracious, no! I'm not in black.
GREGORY. Then I have been behaving like a blackguard. I have broken my
promise to my mother. I shall never have an easy conscience again.
MRS. JUNO. I'm sorry. I thought you knew.
GREGORY. You thought I was a libertine?
MRS. JUNO. No: of course I shouldn't have spoken to you if I had
thought that. I thought you liked me, but that you knew, and would be
good.
GREGORY [stretching his hands towards her breast]. I thought the burden
of being good had fallen from my soul at last. I saw nothing there but
a bosom to rest on: the bosom of a lovely woman of whom I could dream
without guilt. What do I see now?
MRS. JUNO. Just what you saw before.
GREGORY [despairingly]. No, no.
MRS. JUNO. What else?
GREGORY. Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted: Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted.
MRS. JUNO. They won't if they hold their tongues. Don't be such a
coward. My husband won't eat you.
GREGORY. I'm not afraid of your husband. I'm afraid of my conscience.
MRS. JUNO [losing patience]. Well! I don't consider myself at all a
badly behaved woman; for nothing has passed between us that was not
perfectly nice and friendly; but really! to hear a grown-up man talking
about promises to his mother!
GREGORY [interrupting her]. Yes, Yes: I know all about that. It's not
romantic: it's not Don Juan: it's not advanced; but we feel it all the
same. It's far deeper in our blood and bones than all the romantic
stuff. My father got into a scandal once: that was why my mother made
me promise never to make love to a married woman. And now I've done it
I can't feel honest. Don't pretend to despise me or laugh at me. You
feel it too. You said just now that your own conscience was uneasy when
you thought of your husband. What must it be when you think of my wife?
MRS. JUNO [rising aghast]. Your wife!!! You don't dare sit there and
tell me coolly that you're a married man!
GREGORY. I never led you to believe I was unmarried.
MRS. JUNO. Oh! You never gave me the faintest hint that you had a wife.
GREGORY. I did indeed. I discussed things with you that only married
people really understand.
MRS. JUNO. Oh!!
GREGORY. I thought it the most delicate way of letting you know.
MRS. JUNO. Well, you ARE a daisy, I must say. I suppose that's vulgar;
but really! really!! You and your goodness! However, now we've found
one another out there's only one thing to be done. Will you please go?
GREGORY [rising slowly]. I OUGHT to go.
MRS. JUNO. Well, go.
GREGORY. Yes. Er--[he tries to go]. I--I somehow can't. [He sits down
again helplessly]. My conscience is active: my will is paralyzed. This
is really dreadful. Would you mind ringing the bell and asking them to
throw me out? You ought to, you know.
MRS. JUNO. What! make a scandal in the face of the whole hotel!
Certainly not. Don't be a fool.
GREGORY. Yes; but I can't go.
MRS. JUNO. Then I can. Goodbye.
GREGORY [clinging to her hand]. Can you really?
MRS. JUNO. Of course I--[she wavers]. Oh, dear! [They contemplate one
another helplessly]. I can't. [She sinks on the lounge, hand in hand
with him].
GREGORY. For heaven's sake pull yourself together. It's a question of
self-control.
MRS. JUNO [dragging her hand away and retreating to the end of the
chesterfield]. No: it's a question of distance. Self-control is all
very well two or three yards off, or on a ship, with everybody looking
on. Don't come any nearer.
GREGORY. This is a ghastly business. I want to go away; and I can't.
MRS. JUNO. I think you ought to go [he makes an effort; and she adds
quickly] but if you try I shall grab you round the neck and disgrace
myself. I implore you to sit still and be nice.
GREGORY. I implore you to run away. I believe I can trust myself to let
you go for your own sake. But it will break my heart.
MRS. JUNO. I don't want to break your heart. I can't bear to think of
your sitting here alone. I can't bear to think of sitting alone myself
somewhere else. It's so senseless--so ridiculous--when we might be so
happy. I don't want to be wicked, or coarse. But I like you very much;
and I do want to be affectionate and human.
GREGORY. I ought to draw a line.
MRS. JUNO. So you shall, dear. Tell me: do you really like me? I don't
mean LOVE me: you might love the housemaid--
GREGORY [vehemently]. No!
MRS. JUNO. Oh, yes you might; and what does that matter, anyhow? Are
you really fond of me? Are we friends--comrades? Would you be sorry if
I died?
GREGORY [shrinking]. Oh, don't.
MRS. JUNO. Or was it the usual aimless man's lark: a mere shipboard
flirtation?
GREGORY. Oh, no, no: nothing half so bad, so vulgar, so wrong. I assure
you I only meant to be agreeable. It grew on me before I noticed it.
MRS. JUNO. And you were glad to let it grow?
GREGORY. I let it grow because the board was not up.