HOMEWARE, ARDEN
ARDEN: A glorious morning, sir.
HOMEWARE: The sun is out, sir.
ARDEN: I am happy in meeting you, Mr. Homeware.
HOMEWARE: I can direct you to the ladies, Mr. Arden. You will find them
up yonder avenue.
ARDEN: They are listening, I believe, to an oration from the mouth of
Professor Spiral.
HOMEWARE: On an Alpine flower which has descended to flourish on English
soil. Professor Spiral calls it Nature's 'dedicated widow.'
ARDEN: 'Dedicated widow'?
HOMEWARE: The reference you will observe is to my niece Astraea.
ARDEN: She is dedicated to whom?
HOMEWARE: To her dead husband! You see the reverse of Astraea, says the
professor, in those world-infamous widows who marry again.
ARDEN: Bah!
HOMEWARE: Astraea, it is decided, must remain solitary, virgin cold,
like the little Alpine flower. Professor Spiral has his theme.
ARDEN: He will make much of it. May I venture to say that I prefer my
present company?
HOMEWARE: It is a singular choice. I can supply you with no weapons for
the sort of stride in which young men are usually engaged. You belong to
the camp you are avoiding.
ARDEN: Achilles was not the worse warrior, sir, for his probation in
petticoats.
HOMEWARE: His deeds proclaim it. But Alexander was the better chieftain
until he drank with Lais.
ARDEN: No, I do not plead guilty to Bacchus.
HOMEWARE: You are confessing to the madder form of drunkenness.
ARDEN: How, sir, I beg?
HOMEWARE: How, when a young man sees the index to himself in everything
spoken!
ARDEN: That might have the look. I did rightly in coming to you, sir.
HOMEWARE: 'Her uncle Homeware'?
ARDEN: You read through us all, sir.
HOMEWARE: It may interest you to learn that you are the third of the
gentlemen commissioned to consult the lady's uncle Homeware.
ARDEN: The third.
HOMEWARE: Yes, she is pursued. It could hardly be otherwise. Her
attractions are acknowledged, and the house is not a convent. Yet, Mr.
Arden, I must remind you that all of you are upon an enterprise held to
be profane by the laws of this region. Can you again forget that Astraea
is a widow?
ARDEN: She was a wife two months; she has been a widow two years.
HOMEWARE: The widow of the great and venerable Professor Towers is not
to measure her widowhood by years. His, from the altar to the tomb. As
it might be read, a one day's walk!
ARDEN: Is she, in the pride of her youth, to be sacrificed to a
whimsical feminine delicacy?
HOMEWARE: You have argued it with her?
ARDEN: I have presumed.
HOMEWARE: And still she refused her hand!
ARDEN: She commended me to you, sir. She has a sound judgement of
persons.
HOMEWARE: I should put it that she passes the Commissioners of Lunacy,
on the ground of her being a humorous damsel. Your predecessors had also
argued it with her; and they, too, discovered their enemy in a whimsical
feminine delicacy. Where is the difference between you? Evidently she
cannot perceive it, and I have to seek: You will have had many
conversations with Astraea?
ARDEN: I can say, that I am thrice the man I was before I had them.
HOMEWARE: You have gained in manhood from conversations with a widow in
her twenty-second year; and you want more of her.
ARDEN: As much as I want more wisdom.
HOMEWARE: You would call her your Muse?
ARDEN: So prosaic a creature as I would not dare to call her that.
HOMEWARE: You have the timely mantle of modesty, Mr. Arden. She has
prepared you for some of the tests with her uncle Homeware.
ARDEN: She warned me to be myself, without a spice of affectation.
HOMEWARE: No harder task could be set a young man in modern days. Oh,
the humorous damsel. You sketch me the dimple at her mouth.
ARDEN: Frankly, sir, I wish you to know me better; and I think I can
bear inspection. Astraea sent me to hear the reasons why she refuses me
a hearing.
HOMEWARE: Her reason, I repeat, is this; to her idea, a second wedlock
is unholy. Further, it passes me to explain. The young lady lands us
where we were at the beginning; such must have been her humorous
intention.
ARDEN: What can I do?
HOMEWARE: Love and war have been compared. Both require strategy and
tactics, according to my recollection of the campaign.
ARDEN: I will take to heart what you say, sir.
HOMEWARE: Take it to head. There must be occasional descent of lovers'
heads from the clouds. And Professor Spiral,--But here we have a belated
breeze of skirts.
(The reference is to the arrival of LYRA, breathless.)