Act II.—Six Months Later

THE programs rustle. The people look to see where it is. And they find that it is "An Apartment in Paris." Notice that this place which is used in every problem play is just called An Apartment. It is not called Mr. Harding's Apartment, or an Apartment for which Mr. Harding pays the Rent. Not a bit. It is just an Apartment. Even if it were "A Apartment" it would feel easier. But "An Apartment"!! The very words give the audience a delicious shiver of uncomfortableness.

When the curtain rises it discloses a French maid moving about the stage in four-dollar silk stockings. She is setting things on a little table, evidently for supper. She explains this in French as she does it, so as to make it clear.

"Bon! la serviette de monsieur! bon! la serviette de madame, bien—du champagne, bon! langouste aux champignons, bien, bon.—" This is all the French she knows, poor little thing, but langouste aux champignons beats the audience, so she is all right.

Anyway, this supper scene has to come in. It is symbolical. You can't really show Amalfi and Fiesole and the orange trees, so this kind of supper takes their place.

As the maid moves about there is a loud knock at the cardboard door of the apartment. A man in official clothes sticks his head in. He is evidently a postal special messenger because he is all in postal attire with a postal glazed hat.

"Monsieur Arrding?" he says.

"Oui."

"Bon! Une lettre."

"Merci, monsieur." He goes out. The audience feel a thrill of pride at having learned French and being able to follow the intense realism of this dialogue. The maid lays the letter on the supper table.

Just as she does it the door opens and there enter Mr. Harding and Lady Cicely. Yes, them. Both of them. The audience catches it like a flash. They live here.

Lady Cicely throws aside her cloak. There is great gaiety in her manner. Her face is paler. There is a bright spot in each cheek. Her eyes are very bright.

There follows the well-known supper scene. Lady Cicely is very gay. She pours champagne into Mr. Harding's glass. They both drink from it. She asks him if he is a happy boy now. He says he is. She runs her fingers through his hair. He kisses her on the bare shoulder. This is also symbolic.

Lady Cicely rattles on about Amalfi and Fiesole. She asks Mr. Harding if he remembers that night in the olive trees at Santa Clara, with just one thrush singing in the night sky. He says he does. He remembers the very thrush. You can see from the talk that they have been all over Baedeker's guide to the Adriatic.

At times Lady Cicely's animation breaks. She falls into a fit of coughing and presses her hand to her side. Mr. Harding looks at her apprehensively. She says, "It is nothing, silly boy, it will be gone in a moment." It is only because she is so happy.

Then, quite suddenly, she breaks down and falls at Mr. Harding's knees.

"Oh, Jack, Jack, I can't stand it! I can't stand it any longer. It is choking me!"

"My darling, what is it?"

"This, all this, it is choking me—this apartment, these pictures, the French maid, all of it. I can't stand it. I'm being suffocated. Oh, Jack, take me away—take me somewhere where it is quiet, take me to Norway to the great solemn hills and the fjords–"

Then suddenly Mr. Harding sees the letter in its light blue envelope lying on the supper table. It has been lying right beside him for ten minutes. Everybody in the theater could see it and was getting uncomfortable about it. He clutches it and tears it open. There is a hunted look in his face as he reads.

"What is it?"

"My mother—good God, she is coming. She is at the Bristol and is coming here. What can I do?"

Lady Cicely is quiet now.

"Does she know?"

"Nothing, nothing."

"How did she find you?"

"I don't know. I can't imagine. I knew when I saw in the papers that my father was dead that she would come home. But I kept back the address. I told the solicitors, curse them, to keep it secret."

Mr. Harding paces the stage giving an imitation of a weak man trapped. He keeps muttering, "What can I do?"

Lady Cicely speaks very firmly and proudly. "Jack."

"What?"

"There is only one thing to do. Tell her."

Mr. Harding, aghast, "Tell her?"

"Yes, tell her about our love, about everything. I am not ashamed. Let her judge me."

Mr. Harding sinks into a chair. He keeps shivering and saying, "I tell you, I can't; I can't. She wouldn't understand." The letter is fluttering in his hand. His face is contemptible. He does it splendidly. Lady Cicely picks the letter from his hand. She reads it aloud, her eyes widening as she reads:

Hotel Bristol, Paris.

My Darling Boy:

I have found you at last—why have you sought to avoid me? God grant there is nothing wrong. He is dead, the man I taught you to call your father, and I can tell you all now. I am coming to you this instant.

Margaret Harding.

Lady Cicely reads, her eyes widen and her voice chokes with horror.

She advances to him and grips his hand. "What does it mean, Jack, tell me what does it mean?"

"Good God, Cicely, don't speak like that."

"This—these lines—about your father."

"I don't know what it means—I don't care—I hated him, the brute. I'm glad he's dead. I don't care for that. But she's coming here, any minute, and I can't face it."

Lady Cicely, more quietly, "Jack, tell me, did my—did Sir John Trevor ever talk to you about your father?"

"No. He never spoke of him."

"Did he know him?"

"Yes—I think so—long ago. But they were enemies—Trevor challenged him to a duel—over some woman—and he wouldn't fight—the cur."

Lady Cicely (dazed and aghast)—"I—understand—it—now." She recovers herself and speaks quickly.

"Listen. There is time yet. Go to the hotel. Go at once. Tell your mother nothing. Nothing, you understand. Keep her from coming here. Anything, but not that. Ernestine,"—She calls to the maid who reappears for a second—"a taxi—at once."

She hurriedly gets Harding's hat and coat. The stage is full of bustle. There is a great sense of hurry. The audience are in an agony for fear Ernestine is too slow, or calls a four-wheel cab by mistake. If the play is really well put on, you can presently hear the taxi buzzing outside. Mr. Harding goes to kiss Lady Cicely. She puts him from her in horror and hastens him out.

She calls the maid. "Ernestine, quick, put my things, anything, into a valise."

"Madame is going away!"

"Yes, yes, at once."

"Madame will not eat?"

"No, no."

"Madame will not first rest?" (The slow comprehension of these French maids is something exasperating.) "Madame will not await monsieur?

"Madame will not first eat, nor drink—no? Madame will not sleep?"

"No, no—quick, Ernestine. Bring me what I want. Summon a fiacre. I shall be ready in a moment." Lady Cicely passes through a side door into an inner room.

She is scarcely gone when Mrs. Harding enters. She is a woman about forty-five, still very beautiful. She is dressed in deep black.

(The play is now moving very fast. You have to sit tight to follow it all.)

She speaks to Ernestine. "Is this Mr. Harding's apartment?"

"Yes, madame."

"Is he here?" She looks about her.

"No, madame, he is gone this moment in a taxi—to the Hotel Bristol, I heard him say."

Mrs. Harding, faltering. "Is—any one—here?"

"No, madame, no one—milady was here a moment ago. She, too, has gone out." (This is a lie but of course the maid is a French maid.)

"Then it is true—there is some one–" She is just saying this when the bell rings, the door opens and there enters—Sir John Trevor.

"You!" says Mrs. Harding.

"I am too late!" gasps Sir John.

She goes to him tremblingly—"After all these years," she says.

"It is a long time."

"You have not changed."

She has taken his hands and is looking into his face, and she goes on speaking. "I have thought of you so often in all these bitter years—it sustained me even at the worst—and I knew, John, that it was for my sake that you had never married–"

Then, as she goes on talking, the audience realize with a thrill that Mrs. Harding does not know that Sir John married two years ago, that she has come home, as she thought, to the man who loved her, and, more than that, they get another thrill when they realize that Lady Cicely is learning it too. She has pushed the door half open and is standing there unseen, listening. She wears a hat and cloak; there is a folded letter in her hand—her eyes are wide. Mrs. Harding continues:

"And now, John, I want your help, only you can help me, you are so strong—my Jack, I must save him." She looks about the room. Something seems to overcome her. "Oh, John, this place—his being here like this—it seems a judgment on us."

The audience are getting it fast now. And when Mrs. Harding speaks of "our awful moment of folly," "the retribution of our own sins," they grasp it and shiver with the luxury of it.

After that when Mrs. Harding says: "Our wretched boy, we must save him,"—they all know why she says "our."

She goes on more calmly. "I realized. I knew—he is not alone here."

Sir John's voice is quiet, almost hollow. "He is not alone."

"But this woman—can you not deal with her—persuade her—beg her for my sake—bribe her to leave my boy?"

Lady Cicely steps out. "There is no bribe needed. I am going. If I have wronged him, and you, it shall be atoned."

Sir John has given no sign. He is standing stunned. She turns to him. "I have heard and know now. I cannot ask for pity. But when I am gone—when it is over—I want you to give him this letter—and I want you, you two, to—to be as if I had never lived."

She lays the letter in his hand. Then without a sign, Lady Cicely passes out. There is a great stillness in the house. Mrs. Harding has watched Lady Cicely and Sir John in amazement. Sir John has sunk into a chair. She breaks out, "John, for God's sake what does it mean—this woman—speak—there is something awful, I must know."

"Yes, you must know. It is fate. Margaret, you do not know all. Two years ago I married–"

"But this woman, this woman–"

"She is—she was—my wife."

.       .       .       .       .       .       

And at this moment Harding breaks into the room. "Cicely, Cicely, I was too late–" He sees the others. "Mother," he says in agony, "and you–" He looks about. "Where is she? What is happening? I must know–"

Sir John, as if following a mechanical impulse, has handed Harding the letter. He tears it open and reads:

"Dearest, I am going away, to die. It cannot be long now. The doctor told me to-day. That was why I couldn't speak or explain it to you and was so strange at supper. But I am glad now. Good-by."

Harding turns upon Sir John with the snarl of a wolf. "What have you done? Why have you driven her away? What right had you to her, you devil? I loved her—She was mine–"

He had seized a pointed knife from the supper table. His shoulders are crouched—he is about to spring on Sir John. Mrs. Harding has thrown herself between them.

"Jack, Jack, you mustn't strike."

"Out of the way, I say, I'll–"

"Jack, Jack, you mustn't strike. Can't you understand? Don't you see—what it is. . . ."

"What do you mean—stand back from me."

"Jack he—is—your—father."

The knife clatters to the floor. "My God!"

And then the curtain falls—and there's a burst of applause and, in accordance with all the best traditions of the stage, one moment later, Lady Cicely and Mr. Harding and Sir John and Mrs. Harding are all bowing and smiling like anything, and even the little French maid sneaks on in a corner of the stage and simpers.

Then the orchestra plays and the leopards sneak out and the people in the boxes are all talking gayly to show that they're not the least affected. And everybody is wondering how it will come out, or rather how it can possibly come out at all, because some of them explain that it's all wrong, and just as they are making it clear that there shouldn't be any third act, the curtain goes up and it's–