Misalliance

ungentlemanly; but I won’t be protected. I’ll not have my affairs interfered with by men on pretence of protecting me. I’m not your baby. If I interfered between you and a woman, you would soon tell me to mind my own business. Tarleton Children: don’t squabble. Read Dr. Watts. Behave yourselves. Johnny I’ve nothing more to say; and as I don’t seem to be wanted here, I shall take myself off. He goes out with affected calm through the pavilion. Tarleton Summerhays: a family is an awful thing, an impossible thing. Cat and dog. Patsy: I’m ashamed of you. Hypatia I’ll make it up with Johnny afterwards; but I really can’t have him here sticking his clumsy hoof into my affairs. Lord Summerhays The question is, Mr. Percival, are you really a gentleman, or are you not? Percival Was Napoleon really a gentleman or was he not? He made the lady get out of the way of the porter and said, “Respect the burden, madam.” That was behaving like a very fine gentleman; but he kicked Volney for saying that what France wanted was the Bourbons back again. That was behaving rather like a navvy. Now I, like Napoleon, am not all one piece. On occasion, as you have all seen, I can behave like a gentleman. On occasion, I can behave with a brutal simplicity which Miss Tarleton herself could hardly surpass. Tarleton Gentleman or no gentleman, Patsy: what are your intentions? Hypatia My intentions! Surely it’s the gentleman who should be asked his intentions. Tarleton Come now, Patsy! none of that nonsense. Has Mr. Percival said anything to you that I ought to know or that Bentley ought to know? Have you said anything to Mr. Percival? Hypatia Mr. Percival chased me through the heather and kissed me. Lord Summerhays As a gentleman, Mr. Percival, what do you say to that? Percival As a gentleman, I do not kiss and tell. As a mere man: a mere cad, if you like, I say that I did so at Miss Tarleton’s own suggestion. Hypatia Beast! Percival I don’t deny that I enjoyed it. But I did not initiate it. And I began by running away. Tarleton So Patsy can run faster than you, can she? Percival Yes, when she is in pursuit of me. She runs faster and faster. I run slower and slower. And these woods of yours are full of magic. There was a confounded fern owl. Did you ever hear the churr of a fern owl? Did you ever hear it create a sudden silence by ceasing? Did you ever hear it call its mate by striking its wings together twice and whistling that single note that no nightingale can imitate? That is what happened in the woods when I was running away. So I turned; and the pursuer became the pursued. Hypatia I had to fight like a wild cat. Lord Summerhays Please don’t tell us this. It’s not fit for old people to hear. Tarleton Come: how did it end? Hypatia It’s not ended yet. Tarleton How is it going to end? Hypatia Ask him. Tarleton How is it going to end, Mr. Percival? Percival I can’t afford to marry, Mr. Tarleton. I’ve only a thousand a year until my father dies. Two people can’t possibly live on that. Tarleton Oh, can’t they? When I married, I should have been jolly glad to have felt sure of the quarter of it. Percival No doubt; but I am not a cheap person, Mr. Tarleton. I was brought up in a household which cost at least seven or eight times that; and I am in constant money difficulties because I simply don’t know how to live on the thousand a year scale. As to ask a woman to share my degrading poverty, it’s out of the question. Besides, I’m rather young to marry. I’m only 28. Hypatia Papa: buy the brute for me. Lord Summerhays Shrinking. My dear Miss Tarleton: don’t be so naughty. I know how delightful it is to shock an old man; but there is a point at which it becomes barbarous. Don’t. Please don’t. Hypatia Shall I tell Papa about you? Lord Summerhays Tarleton: I had better tell you that I once asked your daughter to become my widow. Tarleton To Hypatia. Why didn’t you accept him, you young idiot? Lord Summerhays I was too old. Tarleton All this has been going on under my nose, I suppose. You run after young men; and old men run after you. And I’m the last person in the world to hear of it. Hypatia How could I tell you? Lord Summerhays Parents and children, Tarleton. Tarleton Oh, the gulf that lies between them! the impassable, eternal gulf! And so I’m to buy the brute for you, eh? Hypatia If you please, papa. Tarleton What’s the price, Mr. Percival? Percival We might do with another fifteen hundred if my father would contribute. But I should like more. Tarleton It’s purely a question of money with you, is it? Percival After a moment’s consideration. Practically yes: it turns on that. Tarleton I thought you might have some sort of preference for Patsy, you know. Percival Well, but does that matter, do you think? Patsy fascinates me, no doubt. I apparently fascinate Patsy. But, believe me, all that is not worth considering. One of my three fathers (the priest) has married hundreds of couples: couples selected by one another, couples selected by the parents, couples forced to marry one another by circumstances of one kind or another; and he assures me that if marriages were made by putting all the men’s names into one sack and the women’s names into another, and having them taken out by a blindfolded child like lottery numbers, there would be just as high a percentage of happy marriages as we have here in England. He said Cupid was nothing but the blindfolded child: pretty idea that, I think! I shall have as good a chance with Patsy as with anyone else. Mind: I’m not bigoted about it. I’m not a doctrinaire: not the slave of a theory. You and Lord Summerhays are experienced married men. If you can tell