_Mr. Ashley_: "The time _has_ seemed long, but I could have waited all
day. I couldn't have gone without seeing you, and telling you--" He
pauses, as if bewildered at the spectacle of Miss Ramsey's resolute
practice with the cigarette, which she now takes from her lips and
waves before her face with innocent recklessness.
_Miss Ramsey_, chokingly: "Do sit down." She drops into an easy-chair
beside the tea-table, and stretches the tips of her feet out beyond
the hem of her skirt in extremely lady-like abandon. "Have a
cigarette." She reaches the box to him.
_Ashley_: "Thank you. I won't smoke, I believe." He stands frowning,
while she throws her cigarette into a teacup and lights another.
_Miss Ramsey_: "I thought everybody smoked. Then have a cocktail."
_Ashley_: "A what?"
_Miss Ramsey_: "A cocktail. So many people like them with their tea,
instead of rum, you know."
_Ashley_: "No, I didn't know." He regards her with amaze, rapidly
hardening into condemnation.
_Miss Ramsey_: "I hope you don't _object_ to smoking. Englishwomen all
smoke."
_Ashley_: "I think I've heard. I didn't know that American ladies
did."
_Miss Ramsey_: "They don't, _all_. But they will when they find how
nice it is."
_Ashley_: "And do Englishwomen all drink cocktails?"
_Miss Ramsey_: "They will when they find how nice it is. But why do
you keep standing? Sit down, if it's only for a moment. There is
something I would like to talk with you about. What were you saying
when you came in? I didn't catch it quite."
_Ashley_: "Nothing--now--"
_Miss Ramsey_: "And I can't persuade you to have a cocktail? I believe
I'll have another myself." She takes up the bottle, and tries several
times to pour from it. "I do believe Nora's forgotten to open it! That
is a good joke on me. But I mustn't let her know. Do you happen to
have a pocket-corkscrew with you, Mr. Ashley?"
_Ashley_: "No--"
_Miss Ramsey_: "Well, never mind." She tosses her cigarette into the
grate, and lights another. "I wonder why they always have cynical
persons smoke, on the stage? I don't see that the two things
necessarily go together, but it does give you a kind of thrill when
they strike a match, and it lights up their faces when they put it to
the cigarette. You know something good and wicked is going to happen."
She puffs violently at her cigarette, and then suddenly flings it away
and starts to her feet. "Will you--would you--open the window?" She
collapses into her chair.
_Ashley_, springing toward her: "Miss Ramsey, are you--you are ill!"
_Miss Ramsey_: "No, no! The window! A little faint--it's so
close-- There, it's all right now. Or it will be--when--I've
had--another cigarette." She leans forward to take one; Ashley gravely
watches her, but says nothing. She lights her cigarette, but, without
smoking, throws it away. "Go on."
_Ashley_: "I wasn't saying anything!"
_Miss Ramsey_: "Oh, I forgot. And I don't know what we were talking
about myself." She falls limply back into her chair and closes her
eyes.
_Ashley_: "Sha'n't I ring for the maid? I'm afraid--"
_Miss Ramsey_, imperiously: "Not at all. Not on any account." Far less
imperiously: "You may pour me a cup of tea if you like. That will make
me well. The full strength, please." She motions away the hot-water
jug with which he has proposed qualifying the cup of tea which he
offers her.
_Ashley_: "One lump or two?"
_Miss Ramsey_: "Only one, thank you." She takes the cup.
_Ashley_, offering the milk: "Cream?"
_Miss Ramsey_: "A drop." He stands anxiously beside her while she
takes a long draught and then gives back the cup. "That was perfect."
_Ashley_: "Another?"
_Miss Ramsey_: "No, that is just right. Now go on. Or, I forgot. You
were not going on. Oh dear! How much better I feel. There must have
been something poisonous in those cigarettes."
_Ashley_: "Yes, there was tobacco."
_Miss Ramsey_: "Oh, do you think it was the tobacco? Do throw the
whole box into the fire! I shall tell Bob never to get cigarettes with
tobacco in them after this. Won't you have one of the chocolates? Or a
mallow? I feel as if I should never want to eat anything again. Where
was I?" She rests her cheek against the side of her chair cushion, and
speaks with closed eyes, in a weak murmur. Mr. Ashley watches her at
first with anxiety, then with a gradual change of countenance until a
gleam of intelligence steals into his look of compassion.
_Ashley_: "You asked me to throw the cigarettes into the fire. But I
want you to let me keep them."
_Miss Ramsey_, with wide-flung eyes: "You? You said you wouldn't
smoke."
_Ashley_, laughing: "May I change my mind? One talks better." He
lights a cigarette. "And, Miss Ramsey, I believe I _will_ have a
cocktail, after all."
_Miss Ramsey_: "Mr. Ashley!"
_Ashley_, without noting her protest: "I had forgotten that I had a
corkscrew in my pocket-knife. Don't trouble yourself to ring for one."
He produces the knife and opens the bottle; then, as Miss Ramsey rises
and stands aghast, he pours out a glass and offers it to her, with
mock devotion. As she shakes her head and recoils: "Oh! I thought you
liked cocktails. They are very good after cigarettes--very reviving.
But if you won't--" He tosses off the cocktail and sets down the
glass, smacking his lips. "Tell your brother I commend his taste--in
cocktails and"--puffing his cigarette--"tobacco. Poison for poison,
let me offer you one of _my_ cigarettes. They're milder than these."
He puts his hand to his breast pocket.
_Miss Ramsey_, with nervous shrinking: "No--"
_Ashley_: "It's just as well. I find that I hadn't brought mine with
me." After a moment: "You are so unconventional, so fearless, that I
should like your notion of the problem in a book I've just been
reading. Why should the mere fact that a man is married to one woman
prevent his being in love with another, or half a dozen others; or
_vice versa_?"
_Miss Ramsey_: "Mr. Ashley, do you wish to insult me?"
_Ashley_: "Dear me, no! But put the case a little differently. Suppose
a couple are merely engaged. Does that fact imply that neither has a
right to a change of mind, or to be fancy free to make another
choice?"
_Miss Ramsey_, indignantly: "Yes, it does. They are as sacredly bound
to each other as if they were married, and if they are false to each
other the girl is a wretch, and the man is a villain! And if you think
anything I have said can excuse you for breaking your engagement, or
that I don't consider you the wickedest person in the world, and the
most barefaced hypocrite, and--and--I don't know what--you are very
much mistaken."
_Ashley_: "What in the world are you talking about?"
_Miss Ramsey_: "I am talking about you and your shameless perfidy."
_Ashley_: "My shameless perf-- I don't understand! I came here
to tell you that I love you--"
_Miss Ramsey_: "How dare you! To speak to me of that, when-- Or
perhaps you _have_ broken with her, and think you are free to hoodwink
some other poor creature. But you will find that you have chosen the
wrong person. And it's no excuse for you her being a little--a
little--not so bright as some girls, and not so good-looking. Oh, it's
enough to make any girl loathe her own looks! You mustn't suppose you
can come here red-handed--yes, it's the same as a murder, and any true
girl would say so--and tell me you care for me. No, Walter Ashley, I
haven't fallen so low as that, though I _have_ the disgrace of your
acquaintance. And I hope--I hope--if you don't like my smoking, and
offering you cocktails, and talking the way I have, it will be a
lesson to you. And yes!--I _will_ say it! If it will add to your
misery to know that I did respect you very much, and thought
everything--very highly--of you, and might have answered you very
differently before, when you were free to tell me _that_--now
I have nothing but the utmost abhorrence--and--disapproval of you.
And--and-- Oh, I don't see how you can be so hateful!" She hides her
face in her hands and rushes from the room, overturning several chairs
in her course toward the door. Ashley remains staring after her, while
a succession of impetuous rings make themselves heard from the street
door. There is a sound of opening it, and then a flutter of skirts and
anxieties, and Miss Garnett comes running into the room.