You Can Never Tell

Did you feel the pathos of that? He vanishes. Mrs. Clandon Left alone with Gloria. Why did Mr. Valentine go away so suddenly, I wonder? Gloria Petulantly. I don’t know. Yes, I do know. Let us go and see the dancing. They go towards the window, and are met by Valentine, who comes in from the garden walking quickly, with his face set and sulky. Valentine Stiffly. Excuse me. I thought the party had quite broken up. Gloria Nagging. Then why did you come back? Valentine I came back because I am penniless. I can’t get out that way without a five shilling ticket. Mrs. Clandon Has anything annoyed you, Mr. Valentine? Gloria Never mind him, mother. This is a fresh insult to me: that is all. Mrs. Clandon Hardly able to realize that Gloria is deliberately provoking an altercation. Gloria! Valentine Mrs. Clandon: have I said anything insulting? Have I done anything insulting? Gloria You have implied that my past has been like yours. That is the worst of insults. Valentine I imply nothing of the sort. I declare that my past has been blameless in comparison with yours. Mrs. Clandon Most indignantly. Mr. Valentine! Valentine Well, what am I to think when I learn that Miss Clandon has made exactly the same speeches to other men that she has made to me⁠—when I hear of at least five former lovers, with a tame naval lieutenant thrown in? Oh, it’s too bad. Mrs. Clandon But you surely do not believe that these affairs⁠—mere jokes of the children’s⁠—were serious, Mr. Valentine? Valentine Not to you⁠—not to her, perhaps. But I know what the men felt. With ludicrously genuine earnestness. Have you ever thought of the wrecked lives, the marriages contracted in the recklessness of despair, the suicides, the⁠—the⁠—the⁠— Gloria Interrupting him contemptuously. Mother: this man is a sentimental idiot. She sweeps away to the fireplace. Mrs. Clandon Shocked. Oh, my dearest Gloria, Mr. Valentine will think that rude. Valentine I am not a sentimental idiot. I am cured of sentiment forever. He sits down in dudgeon. Mrs. Clandon Mr. Valentine: you must excuse us all. Women have to unlearn the false good manners of their slavery before they acquire the genuine good manners of their freedom. Don’t think Gloria vulgar Gloria turns, astonished: she is not really so. Gloria Mother! You apologize for me to him! Mrs. Clandon My dear: you have some of the faults of youth as well as its qualities; and Mr. Valentine seems rather too old fashioned in his ideas about his own sex to like being called an idiot. And now had we not better go and see what Dolly is doing? She goes towards the window. Valentine rises. Gloria Do you go, mother. I wish to speak to Mr. Valentine alone. Mrs. Clandon Startled into a remonstrance. My dear! Recollecting herself. I beg your pardon, Gloria. Certainly, if you wish. She bows to Valentine and goes out. Valentine Oh, if your mother were only a widow! She’s worth six of you. Gloria That is the first thing I have heard you say that does you honor. Valentine Stuff! Come: say what you want to say and let me go. Gloria I have only this to say. You dragged me down to your level for a moment this afternoon. Do you think, if that had ever happened before, that I should not have been on my guard⁠—that I should not have known what was coming, and known my own miserable weakness? Valentine Scolding at her passionately. Don’t talk of it in that way. What do I care for anything in you but your weakness, as you call it? You thought yourself very safe, didn’t you, behind your advanced ideas! I amused myself by upsetting them pretty easily. Gloria Insolently, feeling that now she can do as she likes with him. Indeed! Valentine But why did I do it? Because I was being tempted to awaken your heart⁠—to stir the depths in you. Why was I tempted? Because Nature was in deadly earnest with me when I was in jest with her. When the great moment came, who was awakened? who was stirred? in whom did the depths break up? In myself⁠—myself: I was transported: you were only offended⁠—shocked. You were only an ordinary young lady, too ordinary to allow tame lieutenants to go as far as I went. That’s all. I shall not trouble you with conventional apologies. Goodbye. He makes resolutely for the door. Gloria Stop. He hesitates. Oh, will you understand, if I tell you the truth, that I am not making an advance to you? Valentine Pooh! I know what you’re going to say. You think you’re not ordinary⁠—that I was right⁠—that you really have those depths in your nature. It flatters you to believe it. She recoils. Well, I grant that you are not ordinary in some ways: you are a clever girl Gloria stifles an exclamation of rage, and takes a threatening step towards him; but you’ve not been awakened yet. You didn’t care: you don’t care. It was my tragedy, not yours. Goodbye. He turns to the door. She watches him, appalled to see him slipping from her grasp. As he turns the handle, he pauses; then turns again to her, offering his hand. Let us part kindly. Gloria Enormously relieved, and immediately turning her back on him deliberately. Goodbye. I trust you will soon recover from the wound. Valentine Brightening up as it flashes on him that he is master of the situation after all. I shall recover: such wounds heal more than they harm. After all, I still have my own Gloria. Gloria Facing him quickly. What do you mean? Valentine The Gloria of my imagination. Gloria Proudly. Keep your own Gloria⁠—the Gloria of your imagination. Her emotion begins to break through her pride. The real Gloria⁠—the Gloria who was shocked, offended, horrified⁠—oh, yes, quite truly⁠—who was driven almost mad with shame by the feeling that all