GUNNER. _[reassuring her gravely]_ Dont you be alarmed, maam. I
know what is due to you as a lady and to myself as a gentleman. I
regard you with respect and affection. If you had been my mother, as
you ought to have been, I should have had more chance. But you shall
have no cause to be ashamed of me. The strength of a chain is no
greater than its weakest link; but the greatness of a poet is the
greatness of his greatest moment. Shakespear used to get drunk.
Frederick the Great ran away from a battle. But it was what they
could rise to, not what they could sink to, that made them great.
They werent good always; but they were good on their day. Well, on my
day--on my day, mind you--I'm good for something too. I know that Ive
made a silly exhibition of myself here. I know I didnt rise to the
occasion. I know that if youd been my mother, youd have been ashamed
of me. I lost my presence of mind: I was a contemptible coward. But
_[slapping himself on the chest]_ I'm not the man I was then. This
is my day. Ive seen the tenth possessor of a foolish face carried out
kicking and screaming by a woman. _[To Percival]_ You crowed pretty
big over me. You hypnotized me. But when you were put through the
fire yourself, you were found wanting. I tell you straight I dont
give a damn for you.
MRS TARLETON. No: thats naughty. You shouldnt say that before me.
GUNNER. I would cut my tongue out sooner than say anything vulgar in
your presence; for I regard you with respect and affection. I was not
swearing. I was affirming my manhood.
MRS TARLETON. What an idea! What puts all these things into your
head?
GUNNER. Oh, dont you think, because I'm a clerk, that I'm not one of
the intellectuals. I'm a reading man, a thinking man. I read in a
book--a high class six shilling book--this precept: Affirm your
manhood. It appealed to me. Ive always remembered it. I believe in
it. I feel I must do it to recover your respect after my cowardly
behavior. Therefore I affirm it in your presence. I tell that man
who insulted me that I dont give a damn for him. And neither I do.
TARLETON. I say, Summerhays: did you have chaps of this sort in
Jinghiskahn?
LORD SUMMERHAYS. Oh yes: they exist everywhere: they are a most
serious modern problem.
GUNNER. Yes. Youre right. _[Conceitedly]_ I'm a problem. And I
tell you that when we clerks realize that we're problems! well, look
out: thats all.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. _[suavely, to Gunner]_ You read a great deal, you
say?
GUNNER. Ive read more than any man in this room, if the truth were
known, I expect. Thats whats going to smash up your Capitalism. The
problems are beginning to read. Ha! We're free to do that here in
England. What would you do with me in Jinghiskahn if you had me
there?
LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, since you ask me so directly, I'll tell you.
I should take advantage of the fact that you have neither sense enough
nor strength enough to know how to behave yourself in a difficulty of
any sort. I should warn an intelligent and ambitious policeman that
you are a troublesome person. The intelligent and ambitious policeman
would take an early opportunity of upsetting your temper by ordering
you to move on, and treading on your heels until you were provoked
into obstructing an officer in the discharge of his duty. Any trifle
of that sort would be sufficient to make a man like you lose your
self-possession and put yourself in the wrong. You would then be
charged and imprisoned until things quieted down.
GUNNER. And you call that justice!
LORD SUMMERHAYS. No. Justice was not my business. I had to govern a
province; and I took the necessary steps to maintain order in it. Men
are not governed by justice, but by law or persuasion. When they
refuse to be governed by law or persuasion, they have to be governed
by force or fraud, or both. I used both when law and persuasion
failed me. Every ruler of men since the world began has done so, even
when he has hated both fraud and force as heartily as I do. It is as
well that you should know this, my young friend; so that you may
recognize in time that anarchism is a game at which the police can
beat you. What have you to say to that?
GUNNER. What have I to say to it! Well, I call it scandalous: thats
what I have to say to it.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. Precisely: thats all anybody has to say to it,
except the British public, which pretends not to believe it. And now
let me ask you a sympathetic personal question. Havnt you a headache?
GUNNER. Well, since you ask me, I have. Ive overexcited myself.
MRS TARLETON. Poor lad! No wonder, after all youve gone through!
You want to eat a little and to lie down. You come with me. I want
you to tell me about your poor dear mother and about yourself. Come
along with me. _[She leads the way to the inner door]._
GUNNER. _[following her obediently]_ Thank you kindly, madam. _[She
goes out. Before passing out after her, he partly closes the door and
stops an the landing for a moment to say]_ Mind: I'm not knuckling
down to any man here. I knuckle down to Mrs Tarleton because shes a
woman in a thousand. I affirm my manhood all the same. Understand:
I dont give a damn for the lot of you. _[He hurries out, rather
afraid of the consequences of this defiance, which has provoked Johnny
to an impatient movement towards him]._
HYPATIA. Thank goodness hes gone! Oh, what a bore! WHAT a bore!!!
Talk, talk, talk!
TARLETON. Patsy: it's no good. We're going to talk. And we're
going to talk about you.
JOHNNY. It's no use shirking it, Pat. We'd better know where we are.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. Come, Miss Tarleton. Wont you sit down? I'm very
tired of standing. _[Hypatia comes from the pavilion and takes a
chair at the worktable. Lord Summerhays takes the opposite chair, on
her right. Percival takes the chair Johnny placed for Lina on her
arrival. Tarleton sits down at the end of the writing table. Johnny
remains standing. Lord Summerhays continues, with a sigh of relief at
being seated.]_ We shall now get the change of subject we are all
pining for.
JOHNNY. _[puzzled]_ Whats that?
LORD SUMMERHAYS. The great question. The question that men and women
will spend hours over without complaining. The question that occupies
all the novel readers and all the playgoers. The question they never
get tired of.
JOHNNY. But what question?
LORD SUMMERHAYS. The question which particular young man some young
woman will mate with.
PERCIVAL. As if it mattered!
HYPATIA. _[sharply]_ Whats that you said?
PERCIVAL. I said: As if it mattered.
HYPATIA. I call that ungentlemanly.
PERCIVAL. Do you care about that? you who are so magnificently
unladylike!
JOHNNY. Look here, Mr Percival: youre not supposed to insult my
sister.
HYPATIA. Oh, shut up, Johnny. I can take care of myself. Dont you
interfere.
JOHNNY. Oh, very well. If you choose to give yourself away like
that--to allow a man to call you unladylike and then to be unladylike,
Ive nothing more to say.
HYPATIA. I think Mr Percival is most ungentlemanly; but I wont be
protected. I'll not have my affairs interfered with by men on
pretence of protecting me. I'm not your baby. If I interfered
between you and a woman, you would soon tell me to mind my own
business.
TARLETON. Children: dont squabble. Read Dr Watts. Behave
yourselves.
JOHNNY. Ive nothing more to say; and as I dont seem to be wanted
here, I shall take myself off. _[He goes out with affected calm
through the pavilion]._
TARLETON. Summerhays: a family is an awful thing, an impossible
thing. Cat and dog. Patsy: I'm ashamed of you.
HYPATIA. I'll make it up with Johnny afterwards; but I really cant
have him here sticking his clumsy hoof into my affairs.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. The question is, Mr Percival, are you really a
gentleman, or are you not?
PERCIVAL. Was Napoleon really a gentleman or was he not? He made the
lady get out of the way of the porter and said, "Respect the burden,
madam." That was behaving like a very fine gentleman; but he kicked
Volney for saying that what France wanted was the Bourbons back again.
That was behaving rather like a navvy. Now I, like Napoleon, am not
all one piece. On occasion, as you have all seen, I can behave like a
gentleman. On occasion, I can behave with a brutal simplicity which
Miss Tarleton herself could hardly surpass.
TARLETON. Gentleman or no gentleman, Patsy: what are your
intentions?
HYPATIA. My intentions! Surely it's the gentleman who should be
asked his intentions.
TARLETON. Come now, Patsy! none of that nonsense. Has Mr Percival
said anything to you that I ought to know or that Bentley ought to
know? Have you said anything to Mr Percival?
HYPATIA. Mr Percival chased me through the heather and kissed me.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. As a gentleman, Mr Percival, what do you say to
that?
PERCIVAL. As a gentleman, I do not kiss and tell. As a mere man: a
mere cad, if you like, I say that I did so at Miss Tarleton's own
suggestion.
HYPATIA. Beast!
PERCIVAL. I dont deny that I enjoyed it. But I did not initiate it.
And I began by running away.
TARLETON. So Patsy can run faster than you, can she?
PERCIVAL. Yes, when she is in pursuit of me. She runs faster and
faster. I run slower and slower. And these woods of yours are full
of magic. There was a confounded fern owl. Did you ever hear the
churr of a fern owl? Did you ever hear it create a sudden silence by
ceasing? Did you ever hear it call its mate by striking its wings
together twice and whistling that single note that no nightingale can
imitate? That is what happened in the woods when I was running away.
So I turned; and the pursuer became the pursued.
HYPATIA. I had to fight like a wild cat.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. Please dont tell us this. It's not fit for old
people to hear.
TARLETON. Come: how did it end?
HYPATIA. It's not ended yet.
TARLETON. How is it going to end?
HYPATIA. Ask him.
TARLETON. How is it going to end, Mr Percival?
PERCIVAL. I cant afford to marry, Mr Tarleton. Ive only a thousand a
year until my father dies. Two people cant possibly live on that.
TARLETON. Oh, cant they? When _I_ married, I should have been jolly
glad to have felt sure of the quarter of it.
PERCIVAL. No doubt; but I am not a cheap person, Mr Tarleton. I was
brought up in a household which cost at least seven or eight times
that; and I am in constant money difficulties because I simply dont
know how to live on the thousand a year scale. As to ask a woman to
share my degrading poverty, it's out of the question. Besides, I'm
rather young to marry. I'm only 28.
HYPATIA. Papa: buy the brute for me.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. _[shrinking]_ My dear Miss Tarleton: dont be so
naughty. I know how delightful it is to shock an old man; but there
is a point at which it becomes barbarous. Dont. Please dont.
HYPATIA. Shall I tell Papa about you?
LORD SUMMERHAYS. Tarleton: I had better tell you that I once asked
your daughter to become my widow.
TARLETON. _[to Hypatia]_ Why didnt you accept him, you young idiot?
LORD SUMMERHAYS. I was too old.
TARLETON. All this has been going on under my nose, I suppose. You
run after young men; and old men run after you. And I'm the last
person in the world to hear of it.
HYPATIA. How could I tell you?
LORD SUMMERHAYS. Parents and children, Tarleton.
TARLETON. Oh, the gulf that lies between them! the impassable,
eternal gulf! And so I'm to buy the brute for you, eh?
HYPATIA. If you please, papa.
TARLETON. Whats the price, Mr Percival?
PERCIVAL. We might do with another fifteen hundred if my father would
contribute. But I should like more.
TARLETON. It's purely a question of money with you, is it?
PERCIVAL. _[after a moment's consideration]_ Practically yes: it
turns on that.
TARLETON. I thought you might have some sort of preference for Patsy,
you know.
PERCIVAL. Well, but does that matter, do you think? Patsy fascinates
me, no doubt. I apparently fascinate Patsy. But, believe me, all
that is not worth considering. One of my three fathers (the priest)
has married hundreds of couples: couples selected by one another,
couples selected by the parents, couples forced to marry one another
by circumstances of one kind or another; and he assures me that if
marriages were made by putting all the men's names into one sack and
the women's names into another, and having them taken out by a
blindfolded child like lottery numbers, there would be just as high a
percentage of happy marriages as we have here in England. He said
Cupid was nothing but the blindfolded child: pretty idea that, I
think! I shall have as good a chance with Patsy as with anyone else.
Mind: I'm not bigoted about it. I'm not a doctrinaire: not the
slave of a theory. You and Lord Summerhays are experienced married
men. If you can tell me of any trustworthy method of selecting a
wife, I shall be happy to make use of it. I await your suggestions.
_[He looks with polite attention to Lord Summerhays, who, having
nothing to say, avoids his eye. He looks to Tarleton, who purses his
lips glumly and rattles his money in his pockets without a word]._
Apparently neither of you has anything to suggest. Then Patsy will do
as well as another, provided the money is forthcoming.
HYPATIA. Oh, you beauty, you beauty!
TARLETON. When I married Patsy's mother, I was in love with her.
PERCIVAL. For the first time?
TARLETON. Yes: for the first time.
PERCIVAL. For the last time?
LORD SUMMERHAYS. _[revolted]_ Sir: you are in the presence of his
daughter.
HYPATIA. Oh, dont mind me. I dont care. I'm accustomed to Papa's
adventures.
TARLETON. _[blushing painfully]_ Patsy, my child: that was not--not
delicate.
HYPATIA. Well, papa, youve never shewn any delicacy in talking to me
about my conduct; and I really dont see why I shouldnt talk to you
about yours. It's such nonsense! Do you think young people dont
know?
LORD SUMMERHAYS. I'm sure they dont feel. Tarleton: this is too
horrible, too brutal. If neither of these young people have
any--any--any--
PERCIVAL. Shall we say paternal sentimentality? I'm extremely sorry
to shock you; but you must remember that Ive been educated to discuss
human affairs with three fathers simultaneously. I'm an adult person.
Patsy is an adult person. You do not inspire me with veneration.
Apparently you do not inspire Patsy with veneration. That may
surprise you. It may pain you. I'm sorry. It cant be helped. What
about the money?
TARLETON. You dont inspire me with generosity, young man.
HYPATIA. _[laughing with genuine amusement]_ He had you there, Joey.
TARLETON. I havnt been a bad father to you, Patsy.
HYPATIA. I dont say you have, dear. If only I could persuade you Ive
grown up, we should get along perfectly.
TARLETON. Do you remember Bill Burt?
HYPATIA. Why?
TARLETON. _[to the others]_ Bill Burt was a laborer here. I was
going to sack him for kicking his father. He said his father had
kicked him until he was big enough to kick back. Patsy begged him
off. I asked that man what it felt like the first time he kicked his
father, and found that it was just like kicking any other man. He
laughed and said that it was the old man that knew what it felt like.
Think of that, Summerhays! think of that!
HYPATIA. I havnt kicked you, papa.
TARLETON. Youve kicked me harder than Bill Burt ever kicked.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. It's no use, Tarleton. Spare yourself. Do you
seriously expect these young people, at their age, to sympathize with
what this gentleman calls your paternal sentimentality?
TARLETON. _[wistfully]_ Is it nothing to you but paternal
sentimentality, Patsy?
HYPATIA. Well, I greatly prefer your superabundant vitality, papa.
TARLETON. _[violently]_ Hold your tongue, you young devil. The
young are all alike: hard, coarse, shallow, cruel, selfish,
dirty-minded. You can clear out of my house as soon as you can coax
him to take you; and the sooner the better. _[To Percival]_ I think
you said your price was fifteen hundred a year. Take it. And I wish
you joy of your bargain.