FRANK [Dropping his end of the rifle hastily.] Stop! take care. [She lets go. It falls on the turf.] Oh, youve given your little boy such a turn. Suppose it had gone off! ugh! [He sinks on the garden seat, overcome.]
VTVIE Suppose it had: do you think it would not have been a relief to have some sharp physical pain tearing through me?
FRANK [Coaxingly.] Take it ever so easy, dear Viv. Remember; even if the rifle scared that fellow into telling the truth for the first time in his life, that only makes us the babes in the wood in earnest. [He holds out his arms to her.] Come and be covered up with leaves again.
VTVIE [With a cry of disgust. ] Ah, not that, not that. You make all my flesh
creep. FRANK Why, whats the matter? VIVIE Goodbye. [She makes for the gate.] FRANK [Jumping up.] Hallo! Stop! Viv! Viv! [She turns in the gateway.] Where
are you going to? Where shall we find you? VTVIE At Honoria Fraser's chambers, 67 Chancery Lane, for the rest of my life. [She goes off quickly in the opposite direction to that taken b)' CROFTS.] FRANK But I say?wait?dash it! [He runs after her. ]
Act 4
HONORIA FRASER'S chambers in Chancery Lane. An office at the top of New Stone Buildings, with a plate- glass window, distempered walls, electric light, and a patent stove. Saturday afternoon. The chimneys of Lincoln's Inn3 and the western sky be)'ond are seen through the window. There is a double writing table in the middle of the room, with a cigar box, ash pans, and a portable electric reading lamp almost snowed up in heaps of papers and books. This table has knee holes and chairs right and left and is very untidy. The clerk's desk, closed and tidy, with its high stool, is against the wall, near a door communicating with the inner rooms. In the opposite wall is the door leading to the public corridor. Its upper panel is of opaque glass, lettered in black on the outside, FRASER AND WARREN. A baize screen hides the corner between this door and the window.
FRANK, in a fashionable light-colored coaching suit, with his stick, gloves, and white hat in his hands, is pacing up and down the office. Somebody tries the door with a key.
FRANK [Calling.] Come in. It's not locked.
[VTVIE comes in, in her hat and jacket. She stops and stares at him.] VTVTE [Sternly.] What are you doing here? FRANK Waiting to see you. Ive been here for hours. Is this the way you attend
3. One of the four legal societies in London collectively known as the Inns of Court, which alone have the right to admit candidates to the English bar, thereby allowing them to practice law.
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1 178 0 / BERNARD SHAW
to your business? [He puts his hat and stick on the table, and perches himself with a vault on the clerk's stool, looking at her with every appearance of being in a specially restless, teasing flippant mood. ]
VTVIE Ive been away exactly twenty minutes for a cup of tea. [She takes off her hat and jacket and hangs them up behind the screen.] How did you get in?
FRANK The staff had not left when I arrived. He's gone to play cricket on
Primrose Hill.4 Why dont you employ a woman, and give your sex a chance? vrviE What have you come for? FRANK [Springing of f the stool and coming close to her.] Viv: lets go and enjoy
the Saturday half-holiday somewhere, like the staff. What do you say to
Richmond,5 and then a music hall, and a jolly supper? VIVIE Cant afford it. I shall put in another six hours work before I go to bed. FRANK Cant afford it, cant we? Aha! Look here. [He takes out a handful of
sovereigns and makes them chink.] Gold, Viv: gold! VTVIE Where did you get it? FRANK Gambling, Viv: gambling. Poker. VIVIE Pah! It's meaner6 than stealing it. No: I'm not coming. [She sits down
to work at the table, with her back to the glass door, and begins turning over the papers.] FRANK [Remonstrating piteously. ] But, my dear Viv, I want to talk to you ever so seriously.
VIVIE Very well: sit down in Honoria's chair and talk here. 1 like ten minutes chat after tea. [He murmurs.] No use groaning: I'm inexorable. [He takes the opposite seat disconsolately.] Pass that cigar box, will you?
FRANK [Pushing the cigar box across.] Nasty womanly habit. Nice men dont do it any longer.
VIVIE Yes: they object to the smell in the office; and weve had to take to cigarets. See! [She opens the box and takes out a cigaret, which she lights. She offers him one; but he shakes his head with a wry face. She settles herself comfortably in her chair, smoking.] Go ahead.
FRANK Well, I want to know what youve done?what arrangements youve made.
VTVIE Everything was settled twenty minutes after I arrived here. Honoria has found the business too much for her this year; and she was on the point of sending for me and proposing a partnership when I walked in and told her I hadnt a farthing7 in the world. So I installed myself and packcd her off for a fortnight's holiday. What happened at Haslemere when I left?
FRANK Nothing at all. I said youd gone to town on particular business. VTVIE Well? FRANK Well, either they were too flabbergasted to say anything, or else Crofts
had prepared your mother. Anyhow, she didnt say anything; and Crofts didnt say anything; and Praddy only stared. After tea they got up and went; and Ive not seen them since.
VIVIE [Nodding placidly with one eye on a wreath of smoke.] Thats all right. FRANK [Looking round disparagingly.] Do you intend to stick in this confounded place? VIVIE [Blowing the wreath decisively away, and sitting straight up. ] Yes. These
4. A park in northwest London. but Frank might be proposing a riverside walk. 5. A residential suburb in southwest London; 6. Lower, more degenerate. there were beautiful views from Richmond Hill, 7. A quarter of a penny.
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