Widowers' Houses/Act III
- The drawing-room in Sartorius's house in Bedford Square. Winter evening: Fire burning, curtains drawn and lamps lighted. Sartorius and Blanche are sitting glumly near the fire. The parlor maid, who has just brought in coffee, is placing it on a small table between them. There is a large table in the middle of the room. Looking from it towards the two windows, the pianoforte, a grand, is on the right, with a photographic portrait of Blanche on a miniature easel on the top. There are two doors, one on the left, further forward than the fireplace, leading to the study; the other by the corner nearest the right hand window, leading to the lobby. Blanche has her work basket at hand, and is knitting. Sartorius, closer to the fire, has a newspaper. The parlor maid goes out.
SARTORIUS Blanche, my love.
BLANCHE Yes.
SARTORIUS I had a long talk to the doctor to-day about our going abroad.
BLANCHE [impatiently] I am quite well; and I will not go abroad. I loathe the very thought of the Continent. Why will you bother me so about my health?
SARTORIUS It was not about your health, Blanche, but about my own.
BLANCHE [rising] Yours! [She goes anxiously to him.] Oh, papa, theres nothing the matter with you, I hope?
SARTORIUS There will be, there must be, Blanche, long before you begin to consider yourself an old woman.
BLANCHE But theres nothing the matter now?
SARTORIUS Well, my dear, the doctor says I need change, travel, excitement—
BLANCHE Excitement! You need excitement! [She laughs joylessly, and sits down on the rug at his feet] How is it, papa, that you, who are so clever with everybody else, are not a bit clever with me? Do you think I cant see through your little plan to take me abroad? Since I will not be the invalid and allow you to be the nurse, you are to be the invalid and I am to be the nurse.
SARTORIUS Well, Blanche, if you will have it that you are well and have nothing preying on your spirits, I must insist on being ill and have something preying on mine. And indeed, my girl, there is no use in our going on as we have for the last four months. You have not been happy; and I have been far from comfortable. [Blanche's face clouds : she turns away from him and sits dumb and brooding. He waits in vain for some reply; then adds in a lower tone:] Need you be so inflexible, Blanche?
BLANCHE I thought you admired inflexibility: You have always prided yourself on it.
SARTORIUS Nonsense, my dear, nonsense. I have had to give in often enough. And I could shew you plenty of soft fellows who have done as well as I, and enjoyed themselves more, perhaps. If it is only for the sake of inflexibility that you are standing out.
BLANCHE I am not standing out. I dont know what you mean. [She tries to rise and go away.]
SARTORIUS [Catching her arm and arresting her on her knees.] Come, my child: you must not trifle with me as if I were a stranger. You are fretting because—
BLANCHE [violently twisting herself free and speaking as she rises] If you say it, papa, I will kill myself. It is not true. If he were here on his knees to-night, I would walk out of the house sooner than endure it. [She goes out excitedly. Sartorius, greatly troubled, turns again to the fire with a heavy sigh]
SARTORIUS [gazing gloomily into the glow] Now if I fight it out with her, no more comfort for months! I might as well live with my clerk or my servant. And if I give in now, I shall have to give in always. Well! I cant help it. I have stuck to having my own way all my life; but there must be an end to that drudgery some day. She is young: Let her have her turn at it. [The parlor maid comes in.]
THE PARLOR MAID Please, sir, Mr Lickcheese wants to see you very particlar. On important business your business, he told me to say.
SARTORIUS Mr Lickcheese! Do you mean Lickcheese who used to come here on my business?
THE PARLOR MAID Yes, sir. But indeed, sir, youd scarcely know him.
SARTORIUS [frowning] Hm! Starving, I suppose. Come to beg?
THE PARLOR MAID [intensely repudiating the idea] O-o-o-o-h no, sir. Quite the gentleman, sir! Sealskin overcoat, sir! Come in a hansom, all shaved and clean! I'm sure he's come into a fortune, sir.
SARTORIUS Hm! Shew him up.
- [Lickcheese, who has been waiting at the door, instantly comes in. The change in his appearance is dazzling. He is in evening dress, with an overcoat lined throughout with furs presenting all the hues of the tiger. His shirt is fastened at the breast with a single diamond stud. His silk hat is of the glossiest black; a handsome gold watch-chain hangs like a garland on his jilled-out waistcoat; he has shaved his whiskers and grown a moustache, the ends of which are waxed and pointed. As Sartorius stares speechless at him, he stands, smiling, to be admired, intensely enjoying the effect he is producing. The parlor maid, hardly less pleased with her own share in this coup-de-theatre, goes out beaming, full of the news for the kitchen. Lickcheese clinches the situation by a triumphant nod at Sartorius.]
SARTORIUS [bracing himself hostile] Well?
LICKCHEESE Quite well, Sartorius, thankee.
SARTORIUS I was not asking after your health, sir, as you know, I think, as well as I do. What is your business?
LICKCHEESE Business that I can take elsewhere if I meet with less civility than I please to put up with, Sartorius. You and me is man and man now. It was money that used to be my master, and not you: Dont think it. Now that I'm independent in respect of money—
SARTORIUS [crossing determinedly to tke door, and holding it open] You can take your independence out of my house, then. I wont have it here.
LICKCHEESE [indulgently] Come, Sartorius: Dont be stiffnecked. I come here as a friend to put money in your pocket. No use in your lettin on to me that youre above money. Eh?
SARTORIUS [hesitates, and at last shuts the door, saying guardedly] How much money?
LICKCHEESE [victorious, going to Blanche' s chair and taking off his overcoat] Ah! there you speak like yourself, Sartorius. Now suppose you ask me to sit down and make myself comfortable.
SARTORIUS [coming from the door] I have a mind to put you downstairs by the back of your neck, you infernal blackguard.
LICKCHEESE [Not a bit ruffled, he hangs his overcoat on the back of Blanche's chair, pulling a cigar case out of one of the pockets as he does so.] You and me is too much of a pair for me to take anything you say in bad part, Sartorius. 'Ave a cigar.
SARTORIUS No smoking here : This is my daughter's room. However, sit down, sit down. [They sit']
LICKCHEESE I bin gittin on a little since I saw you last.
SARTORIUS So I see.
LICKCHEESE I owe it partly to you, you know. Does that surprise you?
SARTORIUS It doesnt concern me.
LICKCHEESE So you think, Sartorius, because it never did concern you how I got on, so long as I got you on by bringin in the rents. But I picked up something for myself down at Robbins's Row.
SARTORIUS I always thought so. Have you come to make restitution?
LICKCHEESE You wouldnt take it if I offered it to you, Sartorius. It wasnt money: It was knowledge, knowledge of the great public question of the Housing of the Working Classes. You know theres a Royal Commission on it, dont you?
SARTORIUS Oh, I see. Youve been giving evidence.
LICKCHEESE Giving evidence! Not me. What good would that do me? Only my expenses; and that not on the professional scale, neither. No: I gev no evidence. But I'll tell you what I did. I kep it back, jest to oblige one or two people whose feelins would a bin urt by seein their names in a bluebook as keepin a fever den. Their Agent got so friendly with me over it that he put his name on a bill of mine to the tune of well, no matter: It gev me a start; and a start was all I ever wanted to get on my feet. Ive got a copy of the first report of the Commission in the pocket of my overcoat. [He rises and gets at his overcoat, from a pocket of which he takes a bluebook] I turned down the page to shew you: I thought youd like to see it. [He doubles the book back at the place indicated, and hands it to Sartorius]
SARTORIUS So blackmail is the game, eh? [He puts the book on the table without looking at it, and strikes it emphatically with his fist] I dont care that for my name being in bluebooks. My friends dont read them; and I'm neither a Cabinet Minister nor a candidate for Parliament. Theres nothing to be got out of me on that lay.
LICKCHEESE [sbocked] Blackmail! Oh, Mr Sartorius, do you think I would let out a word about your premises? Round on an old pal! No: that aint Lickcheese's way. Besides, they know all about you already. Them stairs that you and me quarrelled about, they was a whole arternoon examinin the clergyman that made such a fuss you remember? About the women that was urt on it. He made the worst he could of it, in an ungentlemanly, unchristian spirit. I wouldnt have that clergyman's disposition for worlds. Oh no: Thats not what was in my thoughts.
SARTORIUS Come, come, man: What was in your thoughts? Out with it.
LICKCHEESE [With provoking deliberation, smiling and looking mysteriously at him] You aint spent a few hundreds in repairs since we parted, ave you? [Sartorius, losing patience, makes a threatening movement.] Now dont fly out at me. I know a landlord that owned as beastly a slum as you could find in London, down there by the Tower. By my advice that man put half the houses into first-class repair, and let the other half to a new Company: The North Thames Iced Mutton Depot Company, of which I hold a few shares promoters' shares. And what was the end of it, do you think?
SARTORIUS Smash, I suppose.
LICKCHEESE Smash! Not a bit of it. Compensation, Mr Sartorius, compensation. Do you understand that?
SARTORIUS Compensation for what?
LICKCHEESE Why, the land was wanted for an extension of the Mint; and the Company had to be bought out, and the buildings compensated for. Somebody has to know these things beforehand, you know, no matter how dark theyre kept.
SARTORIUS [interested, but cautious] Well?
LICKCHEESE Is that all you have to say to me, Mr Sartorius? "Well!" As if I was next door's dog! Suppose I'd got wind of a new street that would knock down Robbins's Row and turn Burke's Walk into a frontage worth thirty pound a foot! Would you say no more to me than [mimicking] "Well?" [Sartorius hesitates, looking at him in great doubt. Lickcheese rises and exhibits himself] Come: Look at my get-up, Mr Sartorius. Look at this watchchain! Look at the corporation Ive got on me! Do you think all that came from keeping my mouth shut? No: It came from keeping my ears and eyes open. [Blanche comes in, followed by the parlor maid, who has a silver tray on which she collects the coffee cups. Sartorius, impatient at the interruption, rises and motions Lickcheese to the door of the study.]
SARTORIUS Sh! We must talk this over in the study. There is a good fire there; and you can smoke. Blanche: An old friend of ours.
LICKCHEESE And a kind one to me. I hope I see you well, Miss Blanche.
BLANCHE Why, it's Mr Lickcheese! I hardly knew you.
LICKCHEESE I find you a little changed yourself, miss.
BLANCHE [hastily] Oh, I am the same as ever. How are Mrs Lickcheese and the chil—
SARTORIUS [impatiently] We have business to transact, Blanche. You can talk to Mr Lickcheese afterwards. Come on. [Sartorius and Lickcheese go into the study. Blanche, surprised at her father's abruptness, looks after them for a moment. Then, seeing Lickcheese's overcoat on her chair, she takes it up, amused, and looks at the fur.]
THE PARLOR MAID Oh, we are fine, aint we, Miss Blanche? I think Mr Lickcheese must have come into a legacy. [Confidentially] I wonder what he can want with the master, Miss Blanche! He brought him this big book. [She shews the bluebook to Blanche.]
BLANCHE [her curiosity roused] Let me see. [She takes the book and looks at it.] Theres something about papa in it. [She sits down and begins to read.]
THE PARLOR MAID [folding the tea-table and putting it out of the way] He looks ever s'much younger, Miss Blanche, dont he? I couldnt help laughing when I saw him with his whiskers shaved off: It do look so silly when youre not accustomed to it. [No answer from Blanche.] You havnt finished your coffee, Miss: I suppose I may take it away? [No answer.] Oh, you are interested in Mr Lickcheese's book, Miss. [Blanche springs up. The parlor maid looks at her face, and instantly hurries out of the room on tiptoe with her tray.]
BLANCHE So that was why he would not touch the money. [She tries to tear the book across; but that is impossible; so she throws it violently into the fireplace. It falls into the fender.] Oh, if only a girl could have no father, no family, just as I have no mother! Clergyman! Beast! "The worst slum landlord in London." "Slum landlord." Oh! [She covers her face with her hands and sinks shuddering into the chair on which the overcoat lies. The study door opens.]
LICKCHEESE [in the study] You just wait five minutes: I'll fetch him. [Blanche snatches a piece of work from her basket and sits erect and quiet, stitching at it. Lickcheese coomes back, speaking to Sartorius, who follows him.] He lodges round the corner in Gower Street; and my private 'ansom's at the door. By your leave, Miss Blanche. [pulling gently at his overcoat.]
BLANCHE [rising] I beg your pardon. I hope I havnt crushed it.
LICKCHEESE [gallantly, as he gets into the coat] Youre welcome to crush it again now, Miss Blanche. Dont say good evenin to me, miss: I'm comin' back presently, me and a friend or two. Ta ta, Sartorius: I shant be long. [He goes out. Sartorius looks about for the blue book.]
BLANCHE I thought we were done with Lickcheese.
SARTORIUS Not quite yet, I think. He left a book here for me to look over, a large book in a blue paper cover. Has the girl put it away? [He sees it in the fender, looks at Blanche, and adds:] Have you seen it?
BLANCHE No. Yes. [Angrily] No: I have not seen it. What have I to do with it? [Sartorius picks the book up and dusts it; then sits down quietly to read. After a glance up and down the columns, he nods assentingly, as if he found there exactly what he expected.]
SARTORIUS It's a curious thing, Blanche, that the Parliamentary gentlemen who write such books as these should be so ignorant of practical business. One would suppose, to read this, that we are the most grasping, grinding, heartless pair in the world, you and I.
BLANCHE Is it not true about the state of the houses, I mean?
SARTORIUS [calmly] Oh, quite true.
BLANCHE Then it is not our fault?
SARTORIUS My dear: if we made the houses any better, the rents would have to be raised so much that the poor people would be unable to pay, and would be thrown homeless on the streets.
BLANCHE Well, turn them out and get in a respectable class of people. Why should we have the disgrace of harbouring such wretches?
SARTORIUS [opening his eyes] That sounds a little hard on them, doesnt it, my child?
'BLANCHE Oh, I hate the poor. At least, I hate those dirty, drunken, disreputable people who live like pigs. If they must be provided for, let other people look after them. How can you expect anyone to think well of us when such things are written about us in that infamous book?
SARTORIUS [coldly and a little wistfully] I see I have made a real lady of you, Blanche.
BLANCHE [defiantly] Well, are you sorry for that?
SARTORIUS No, my dear: Of course not. But do you know, Blanche, that my mother was a very poor woman, and that her poverty was not her fault?
BLANCHE I suppose not; but the people we want to mix with now dont know that. And it was not my fault; so I dont see why I should be made to suffer for it.
SARTORIUS [enraged] Who makes you suffer for it, miss? What would you be now but for what your grandmother did for me when she stood at her wash-tub for thirteen hours a day and thought herself rich when she made fifteen shillings a week?
BLANCHE [angrily] I suppose I should have been down on her level instead of being raised above it, as I am now. Would you like us to go and live in that place in the book for the sake of grandmamma? I hate the idea of such things. I dont want to know about them. I love you because you brought me up to something better. [Half aside, as she turns a way from him.] I should hate you if you had not.
SARTORIUS [giving in] Well, my child, I suppose it is natural for you to feel that way, after your bringing up. It is the ladylike view of the matter. So dont let us quarrel, my girl. You shall not be made to suffer any more. I have made up my mind to improve the property, and get in quite a new class of tenants. There! does that satisfy you? I am only waiting for the consent of the ground landlord, Lady Roxdale.
BLANCHE Lady Roxdale!
SARTORIUS Yes. But I shall expect the mortgagee to take his share of the risk.
BLANCHE The mortgagee! Do you mean— [She cannot finish the sentence: Sartorius does it for her.]
SARTORIUS Harry Trench. Yes. And remember, Blanche: if he consents to join me in the scheme, I shall have to be friends with him.
BLANCHE And to ask him to the house?
SARTORIUS Only on business. You need not meet him unless you like.
BLANCHE [overwhelmed] When is he coming?
SARTORIUS There is no time to be lost. Lickcheese has gone to ask him to come round.
BLANCHE [in dismay] Then he will be here in a few minutes! What shall I do?
SARTORIUS I advise you to receive him as if nothing had happened, and then go out and leave us to our business. You are not afraid to meet him?
BLANCHE Afraid! No, most certainly not. But [Lickcheese's voice is heard without] Here they are. Dont say I'm here, papa. [She rushes away into the study.]
[Lickcheese comes in with Trench and Cokane. Cokane shakes hands effusively with Bartorius. Trench, who is coarsened and sullen, and has evidently not been making the best of his disappointment, bows shortly and resentfully. Lickcheese covers the general embarrassment by talking cheerfully until they are all seated round the large table: Trench nearest the freplace; Cokane nearest the piano; and the other two between them, with Lickcheese next Cokane.]
LICKCHEESE Here we are, all friends round St Paul's. You remember Mr Cokane: He does a little business for me now as a friend, and gives me a help with my correspondence– sekketerry we call it. Ive no litery style, and thats the truth; so Mr Cokane kindly puts it into my letters and draft prospectuses and advertisements and the like. Dont you, Cokane? Of course you do: Why shouldnt you? He's been helping me tonight to persuade his old friend, Dr Trench, about the matter we were speaking of.
COKANE [austerely] No, Mr Lickcheese, not trying to persuade him. No: This is a matter of principle with me. I say it is your duty, Henry your duty to put those abominable buildings into proper and habitable repair. As a man of science you owe it to the community to perfect the sanitary arrangements. In questions of duty there is no room for persuasion, even from the oldest friend.
SARTORIUS [to Trench] I certainly feel, as Mr Cokane puts it, that it is our duty: One which I have perhaps too long neglected out of regard for the poorest class of tenants.
LICKCHEESE Not a doubt of it, gents, a dooty. I can be as sharp as any man when it's a question of business; but dooty's another thing.
TRENCH Well, I dont see that it's any more my duty now than it was four months ago. I look at it simply as a question of so much money.
COKANE Shame, Harry, shame! Shame!
TRENCH Oh, shut up, you fool. [Cokane springs up. Lickcheese catches his coat and holds him.]
LICKCHEESE Steady, steady, Mr Sekketerry. Dr Trench is only joking.
COKANE I insist on the withdrawal of that expression. I have been called a fool.
TRENCH [morosely] So you are a fool.
'COKANE Then you are a damned fool. Now, sir!
TRENCH All right. Now weve settled that. [Cokane, with a snort, sits down.] What I mean is this. Dont lets have any nonsense about this job. As I understand it, Robbins's Row is to be pulled down to make way for the new street into the Strand; and the straight tip now is to go for compensation.
LICKCHEESE [chuckling] That'so, Dr Trench. Thats it.
TRENCH {continuing] Well, it appears that the dirtier a place is the more rent you get; and the decenter it is, the more compensation you get. So we're to give up dirt and go in for decency.
SARTORIUS I should not put it exactly in that way; but—
COKANE Quite right, Mr Sartorius, quite right. The case could not have been stated in worse taste or with less tact.
LICKCHEESE Sh-sh-sh-sh!
SARTORIUS I do not quite go with you there, Mr Cokane. Dr Trench puts the case frankly as a man of business. I take the wider view of a public man. We live in a progressive age; and humanitarian ideas are advancing and must be taken into account. But my practical conclusion is the same as his. I should hardly feel justified in making a large claim for compensation under existing circumstances.
LICKCHEESE Of course not; and you wouldnt get it if you did. You see, it's like this, Dr Trench. Theres no doubt that the Vestries has legal powers to play old Harry with slum properties, and spoil the houseknacking game if they please. That didnt matter in the good old times, because the Vestries used to be us ourselves. Nobody ever knew a word about the election; and we used to get ten of us into a room and elect one another, and do what we liked. Well, that cock wont fight any longer; and, to put it short, the game is up for men in the position of you and Mr Sartorius. My advice to you is, take the present chance of getting out of it. Spend a little money on the block at the Cribbs Market end enough to make it look like a model dwelling; and let the other block to me on fair terms for a depot of the North Thames Iced Mutton Company. Theyll be knocked down inside of two year to make room for the new north and south main thoroughfare; and youll be compensated to the tune of double the present valuation, with the cost of the improvements thrown in. Leave things as they are; and you stand a good chance of being fined, or condemned, or pulled down before long. Now's your time.
COKANE Hear, hear! Hear, hear! Hear, hear! Admirably put from the business point of view! I recognize the uselessness of putting the moral point of view to you, Trench; but even you must feel the cogency of Mr Lickcheese's business statement.
TRENCH But why cant you act without me? What have I got to do with it? I'm only a mortgagee.
SARTORIUS There is a certain risk in this compensation investment, Dr Trench. The County Council may alter the line of the new street. If that happens, the money spent in improving the houses will be thrown away, simply thrown away. Worse than thrown away, in fact; for the new buildings may stand unlet, or half let, for years. But you will expect your seven per cent as usual.
TRENCH A man must live.
COCKANE Je n'en vois pas la necessite.
TRENCH Shut up, Billy; or else speak some language you understand. No, Mr Sartorius: I should be very glad to stand in with you if I could afford it; but I cant; so theres an end of that.
LICKCHEESE Well, all I can say is that youre a very foolish young man.
COKANE What did I tell you, Harry?
TRENCH I dont see that it's any business of yours, Mr Lickcheese.
LICKCHEESE It's a free country: Every man has a right to his opinion. [Cokane cries "Hear, hear!"] Come: wheres your feelins for them poor people, Dr Trench? Remember how it went to your heart when I first told you about them. What! Are you going to turn hard?
TRENCH No: It wont do: You cant get over me that way. You proved to me before that there was no use in being sentimental over that slum shop of ours; and it's no good your turning round on the philanthropic tack now that you want me to put my capital into your speculation. Ive had my lesson; and I'm going to stick to my present income. It's little enough for me as it is.
SARTORIUS It really matters nothing to me, Dr Trench, how you decide. I can easily raise the money elsewhere and pay you off. Then, since you are resolved to run no risks, you can invest your £10,000 in Consols and get 250 a year for it instead of 700. [Trench, completely outwitted, stares at them in consternation. Cokane breaks the silence.]
COKANE This is what comes of being avaricious, Harry. Two thirds of your income gone at one blow. And I must say it serves you right.
TRENCH Thats all very fine; but I dont understand it. If you can do this to me, why didnt you do it long ago?
SARTORIUS Because, as I should probably have had to borrow at the same rate, I should have saved nothing; whereas you would have lost over £400 a very serious matter for you. I had no desire to be unfriendly; and even now I should be glad to let the mortgage stand, were it not that the circumstances mentioned by Mr Lickcheese force my hand. Besides, Dr Trench, I hoped for some time that our interests might be joined by closer ties even than those of friendship.
LICKCHEESE [jumping up, relieved] There! Now the murder's out. Excuse me, Dr Trench. Excuse me, Mr Sartorius: excuse my freedom. Why not Dr Trench marry Miss Blanche, and settle the whole affair that way? [Sensation. Lickcheese sits down triumphant.]
COKANE You forget, Mr Lickcheese, that the young lady, whose taste has to be considered, decisively objected to him.
TRENCH Oh! Perhaps you think she was struck with you.
COKANE I do not say so, Trench. No man of any delicacy would suggest such a thing. You have an untutored mind, Trench, an untutored mind.
TRENCH Well, Cokane : Ive told you my opinion of you already.
COKANE {rising wildly] And I have told you my opinion of you. I will repeat it if you wish. I am ready to repeat it.
LICKCHEESE Come, Mr Sekketerry: You and me, as married men, is out of the 'unt as far as young ladies is concerned. I know Miss Blanche: She has her father's eye for business. Explain this job to her; and she'll make it up with Dr Trench. Why not have a bit of romance in business when it costs nothing? We all have our feelins: We aint mere calculatin machines.
SARTORIUS [revolted] Do you think, Lickcheese, that my daughter is to be made part of a money bargain between you and these gentlemen?
LICKCHEESE Oh come, Sartorius: Dont talk as if you was the only father in the world. I have a daughter too; and my feelins in that matter is just as fine as yours. I propose nothing but what is for Miss Blanche's advantage and Dr Trench's.
COKANE Lickcheese expresses himself roughly, Mr Sartorius; but his is a sterling nature; and what he says is to the point. If Miss Sartorius can really bring herself to care for Harry, I am far from desiring to stand in the way of such an arrangement.
TRENCH Why, what have you got to do with it?
LICKCHEESE Easy, Dr Trench, easy. We want your opinion. Are you still on for marrying Miss Blanche if she's agreeable?
TRENCH [shortly] I dont know that I am. [Sartorius rises indignantly.]
LICKCHEESE Easy one moment, Mr Sartorius. [To Trench:] Come, Dr Trench: You say you dont know that you are. But do you know that you aint? Thats what we want to know.
TRENCH [sulkily] I wont have the relations between Miss Sartorius and myself made part of a bargain. [He rises to leave the table.]
LICKCHEESE [rising] Thats enough: A gentleman could say no less. [Insinuatingly] Now, would you mind me and Cokane and the guvnor steppin into the study to arrange about the lease to the North Thames Iced Mutton Company?
TRENCH Oh, I dont mind. I'm going home. Theres nothing else to say.
LICKCHEESE No, dont go. Only just a minute: me and Cokane will be back in no time to see you home. Youll wait for us, wont you? theres a good fellow!
TRENCH Well, if you wish, yes.
LICKCHEESE [cheerily] Didnt I know you would!
SARTORIUS [at the study door, to Cokane] After you, sir. [Cokane bows formally and goes into the study.]
LICKCHEESE [at the door, aside to Sartorius] You never ad such a managin man as me, Sartorius. [He goes into the study chuckling, followed by Sartorius.]
- [Trench, left alone, looks round carefully and listens a moment. Then he goes on tiptoe to the piano and leans upon it with folded arms, gazing at Blanche's portrait. Blanche herself appears presently at the study door. When she sees how he is occupied, she closes it softly and steals over to him, watching him intently. He rises from his leaning attitude, and takes the portrait from the easel, holding it out before him at arms length; then, taking a second look round to reassure himself that nobcdy is watching him, finds Blanche close upon him. He drops the portrait and stares at her without the least presence of mind.]
BLANCHE [shrewishly] Well? So you have come back here. You have had the meanness to come into this house again. [He flushes and retreats a step. She follows him up remorselessly.] What a poor spirited creature you must be! Why dont you go?
- [Red and wincing, he starts huffily to get his hat from the table; but when he turns to the door with it she deliberately gets in his way, so that he has to stop.] I dont want you to stay. [For a moment they stand face to face, quite close to one another, she provocative, taunting, half defying, half inviting him to advance, in a flush of undisguised animal excitement. It suddenly flashes on him that all this ferocity is erotic that she is making love to him. His eye lights up: a cunning expression comes into the corners of his mouth: With a heavy assumption of indifference he walks straight back to his chair, and plants himself in it with his arms folded. She comes down the room after him.]
Blanche But I forgot: You have found that there is some money to be made here. Lickcheese told you. You, who were so disinterested, so independent, that you could not accept anything from my father! [At the end of every sentence she waits to see what execution she has done.] I suppose you will try to persuade me that you have come down here on a great philanthropic enterprise to befriend the poor by having those houses rebuilt, eh? [Trench maintains his attitude and makes no sign.] Yes: when my father makes you do it. And when Lickcheese has discovered some way of making it profitable. Oh, I know papa; and I know you. And for the sake of that, you come back here into the house where you were refused, ordered out. [Trench's face darkens: her eyes gleam as she sees it.] Aha! you remember that. You know it's true: You cant deny it. [She sits down, and softens her tone a little as she affects to pity him.] Ah, let me tell you that you cut a poor figure; a very, very poor figure, Harry. [At the word "Harry" he relaxes the fold of his arms; and a faint grin of anticipated victory appears on his face.] And you, too, a gentleman! So highly connected! With such distinguished relations! So particular as to where your money comes from! I wonder at you. I really wonder at you. I should have thought that if your family brought you nothing else, it might at least have brought you some sense of personal dignity. Perhaps you think you look dignified at present, eh? [No reply.] Well, I can assure you that you dont: You look most ridiculous as foolish as a man could look. You dont know what to say; and you dont know what to do. But after all, I really dont see what anyone could say in defence of such conduct. [He looks straight in front of him, and purses up his lips as if whistling. This annoys her; and she becomes affectedly polite.] I am afraid I am in your way, Dr Trench. [She rises.] I shall not intrude on you any longer. You seem so perfectly at home that I need make no apology for leaving you to yourself. [She makes a feint of going to the door; but he does not budge; and she returns and comes behind his chair.] Harry. [He does not turn. She comes a step nearer.] Harry : I want you to answer me a question. [Earnestly, stooping over him] Look me in the face. [No reply.] Do you hear? [Putting her hand on his shoulder] Look me in the face. [He still stares straight in front of him. She suddenly kneels down beside him with her breast against his right shoulder, and, taking his face in her hands, twists it sharply towards her.] Harry: what were you doing with my photograph just now, when you thought you were alone? [His face writhes as he tries hard not to smile. She flings her arms round him, and crushes him in an ecstatic embrace as she adds, with furious tenderness:] How dare you touch anything belonging to me? [The study door opens and voices are heard.]
TRENCH I hear some one coming. [She regains her chair with a bound, and pushes it back as far as possible. Cokane, Lickcheese and Sartorius come from the study. Sartorius and Lickcheese come to Trench. Cokane crosses to Blanche in his most killing manner.]
COKANE How do you do, Miss Sartorius? Nice weather for the return of l'enfant prodigue, eh?
BLANCHE Capital, Mr Cokane. So glad to see you. [She gives him her hand, which he kisses with gallantry.]
LICKCHEESE [on Trench's left, in a low voice] Any noos for us, Dr Trench?
TRENCH [to Sartorius, on his right] I'll stand in, compensation or no compensation. [He shakes Sartorius' s hand. The parlor maid has just appeared at the door.]
BLANCHE Supper is ready, papa.
COKANE Allow me.
- [Exeunt omnes: Blanche on Cokane's arm; Lickcheese jocosely taking Sartorius on one arm, and Trench on the other.]