CAPT. G. (Anxiously.) Not chilled, pet, are you? Better let me get
your cloak.
MRS. G. No. Don't leave me, Phil. Stay here. I believe I am afraid. Oh,
why are the hills so horrid! Phil, promise me that you'll always love
me.
CAPT. G. What's the trouble, darling? I can't promise any more than I
have; but I'll promise that again and again if you like.
MRs. G. (Her head on his shoulder.) Say it, then--say it! N-no--don't!
The--the--eagles would laugh. (Recovering.) My husband, you've married a
little goose.
CAPT. G. (Very tenderly.) Have I? I am content whatever she is, so long
as she is mine.
MRS. G. (Quickly.) Because she is yours or because she is me mineself?
CAPT. G. Because she is both. (Piteously.) I'm not clever, dear, and I
don't think I can make myself understood properly.
MRS. G. I understand. Pip, will you tell me something?
CAPT. G. Anything you like. (Aside.) I wonder what's coming now.
MRS. G. (Haltingly, her eyes 'owered.) You told me once in the old
days--centuries and centuries ago--that you had been engaged before. I
didn't say anything--then.
CAPT. G. (Innocently.) Why not?
MRS. G. (Raising her eyes to his.) Because--because I was afraid of
losing you, my heart. But now--tell about it--please.
CAPT. G. There's nothing to tell. I was awf'ly old then--nearly two and
twenty--and she was quite that.
MRS. G. That means she was older than you. I shouldn't like her to have
been younger. Well?
CAPT. G. Well, I fancied myself in love and raved about a bit, and--oh,
yes, by Jove! I made up poetry. Ha! Ha!
MRS. G. You never wrote any for me! What happened?
CAPT. G. I came out here, and the whole thing went phut. She wrote to
say that there had been a mistake, and then she married.
MRS. G. Did she care for you much?
CAPT. G. No. At least she didn't show it as far as I remember.
MRS. G. As far as you remember! Do you remember her name? (Hears it and
bows her head.) Thank you, my husband.
CAPT. G. Who but you had the right? Now, Little Featherweight, have you
ever been mixed up in any dark and dismal tragedy?
MRS. G. If you call me Mrs. Gadsby, p'raps I'll tell.
CAPT. G. (Throwing Parade rasp into his voice.) Mrs. Gadsby, confess!
MRS. G. Good Heavens, Phil! I never knew that you could speak in that
terrible voice.
CAPT. G. You don't know half my accomplishments yet. Wait till we are
settled in the Plains, and I'll show you how I bark at my troop. You
were going to say, darling?
MRS. G. I--I don't like to, after that voice. (Tremulously.) Phil, never
you dare to speak to me in that tone, whatever I may do!
CAPT. G. My poor little love! Why, you're shaking all over. I am so
sorry. Of course I never meant to upset you Don't tell me anything, I'm
a brute.
MRS. G. No, you aren't, and I will tell--There was a man.
CAPT. G. (Lightly.) Was there? Lucky man!
MRS. G. (In a whisper.) And I thought I cared for him.
CAPT. G. Still luckier man! Well?
MRS. G. And I thought I cared for him--and I didn't--and then you
came--and I cared for you very, very much indeed. That's all. (Face
hidden.) You aren't angry, are you?
CAPT. G. Angry? Not in the least. (Aside.) Good Lord, what have I done
to deserve this angel?
MRS. G. (Aside.) And he never asked for the name! How funny men are! But
perhaps it's as well.
CAPT. G. That man will go to heaven because you once thought you cared
for him. 'Wonder if you'll ever drag me up there?
MRS. G. (Firmly.) 'Sha'n't go if you don't.
CAPT. G. Thanks. I say, Pussy, I don't know much about your religious
beliefs. You were brought up to believe in a heaven and all that,
weren't you?
MRS. G. Yes. But it was a pincushion heaven, with hymn-books in all the
pews.
CAPT. G. (Wagging his head with intense conviction.) Never mind. There
is a pukka heaven.
MRS. G. Where do you bring that message from, my prophet?
CAPT. G. Here! Because we care for each other. So it's all right.
Mrs. G. (As a troop of langurs crash through the branches.) So it's all
right. But Darwin says that we came from those!
CAPT. G. (Placidly.) Ah! Darwin was never in love with an angel. That
settles it. Sstt, you brutes! Monkeys, indeed! You shouldn't read those
books.
MRS. G. (Folding her hands.) If it pleases my Lord the King to issue
proclamation.
CAPT. G. Don't, dear one. There are no orders between us. Only I'd
rather you didn't. They lead to nothing, and bother people's heads.
MRS. G. Like your first engagement.
CAPT. G. (With an immense calm.) That was a necessary evil and led to
you. Are you nothing?
MRS. G. Not so very much, am I?
CAPT. G. All this world and the next to me.
MRS. G. (Very softly.) My boy of boys! Shall I tell you something?
CAPT. G. Yes, if it's not dreadful--about other men.
MRS. G. It's about my own bad little self.
CAPT. G. Then it must be good. Go on, dear.
MRS. G. (Slowly.) I don't know why I'm telling you, Pip; but if ever you
marry again-(Interlude.) Take your hand from my mouth or I'll bite! In
the future, then remember--I don't know quite how to put it!
CAPT. G. (Snorting indignantly.) Don't try. “Marry again,” indeed!
MRS. G. I must. Listen, my husband. Never, never, never tell your wife
anything that you do not wish her to remember and think over all her
life. Because a woman--yes, I am a woman--can't forget.
CAPT. G. By Jove, how do you know that?
MRS. G. (Confusedly.) I don't. I'm only guessing. I am--I was--a silly
little girl; but I feel that I know so much, oh, so very much more than
you, dearest. To begin with, I'm your wife.
CAPT. G. So I have been led to believe.
MRS. G. And I shall want to know every one of your secrets--to share
everything you know with you. (Stares round desperately.)
CAPT. G. So you shall, dear, so you shall--but don't look like that.
MRS. G. For your own sake don't stop me, Phil. I shall never talk to you
in this way again. You must not tell me! At least, not now. Later on,
when I'm an old matron it won't matter, but if you love me, be very good
to me now; for this part of my life I shall never forget! Have I made
you understand?
CAPT. G. I think so, child. Have I said anything yet that you disapprove
of?
MRS. G. Will you be very angry? That--that voice, and what you said
about the engagement--
CAPT. G. But you asked to be told that, darling.
MRS. G. And that's why you shouldn't have told me! You must be the
Judge, and, oh, Pip, dearly as I love you, I shan't be able to help you!
I shall hinder you, and you must judge in spite of me!
CAPT. G. (Meditatively.) We have a great many things to find out
together, God help us both--say so, Pussy--but we shall understand each
other better every day; and I think I'm beginning to see now. How in the
world did you come to know just the importance of giving me just that
lead?
MRS. G. I've told you that I don't know. Only somehow it seemed that, in
all this new life, I was being guided for your sake as well as my own.
CAPT. G. (Aside.) Then Mafilin was right! They know, and we--we're blind
all of us. (Lightly.) 'Getting a little beyond our depth, dear, aren't
we? I'll remember, and, if I fail, let me be punished as I deserve.
MRS. G. There shall be no punishment. We'll start into life together
from here--you and I--and no one else.
CAPT. G. And no one else. (A pause.) Your eyelashes are all wet, Sweet?
Was there ever such a quaint little Absurdity?
MRS. G. Was there ever such nonsense talked before?
CAPT. G. (Knocking the ashes out of his pipe.) 'Tisn't what we say, it's
what we don't say, that helps. And it's all the profoundest philosophy.
But no one would understand--even if it were put into a book.
MRS. G. The idea! No--only we ourselves, or people like ourselves--if
there are any people like us.
CAPT. G. (Magisterially.) All people, not like ourselves, are blind
idiots.
MRS. G. (Wiping her eyes.) Do you think, then, that there are any people
as happy as we are?
CAPT. G. 'Must be--unless we've appropriated all the happiness in the
world.
MRS. G. (Looking toward Simla.) Poor dears! Just fancy if we have!
CAPT. G. Then we'll hang on to the whole show, for it's a great deal too
jolly to lose--eh, wife o' mine?
MRS. G. O Pip! Pip! How much of you is a solemn, married man and how
much a horrid slangy schoolboy?
CAPT. G. When you tell me how much of you was eighteen last birthday and
how much is as old as the Sphinx and twice as mysterious, perhaps I'll
attend to you. Lend me that banjo. The spirit moveth me to jowl at the
sunset.
MRS. G. Mind! It's not tuned. Ah! How that jars!
CAPT G. (Turning pegs.) It's amazingly different to keep a banjo to
proper pitch.
MRS. G. It's the same with all musical instruments, What shall it be?
CAPT. G. “Vanity,” and let the hills hear. (Sings through the first and
hal' of the second verse. Turning to MRS. G.) Now, chorus! Sing, Pussy!
BOTH TOGETHER. (Con brio, to the horror of the monkeys who are settling
for the night.)--
“Vanity, all is Vanity,” said Wisdom, scorning me--
I clasped my true Love's tender hand and answered frank and free-ee
“If this be Vanity who'd be wise? If this be Vanity who'd be wise?
If this be Vanity who'd be wi-ise (Crescendo.) Vanity let it be!”
MRS. G. (Defiantly to the grey of the evening sky.) “Vanity let it be!”
ECHO. (Prom the Fagoo spur.) Let it be!