The Circle Part 20

ARNOLD. Twenty-four hours after you leave this house I shall go down to Brighton with a chorus-girl. And neither you nor I will be able to get a divorce. We've had enough divorces in our family. And now get out, get out, get out!

[_TEDDIE looks uncertainly at ELIZABETH._

ELIZABETH. [_With a little smile._] Don't bother about me. I shall be all right.

ARNOLD. Get out! Get out!

END OF THE SECOND ACT

THE THIRD ACT

_The Scene is the same as in the preceding Acts._

_It is the night of the same day as that on which takes place the action of the second Act._

_CHAMPION-CHENEY and ARNOLD, both in dinner jackets, are discovered.

CHAMPION-CHENEY is seated. ARNOLD walks restlessly up and down the room._

C.-C. I think, if you'll follow my advice to the letter, you'll probably work the trick.

ARNOLD. I don't like it, you know. It's against all my principles.

C.-C. My dear Arnold, we all hope that you have before you a distinguished political career. You can't learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.

ARNOLD. But supposing it doesn't come off? Women are incalculable.

C.-C. Nonsense! Men are romantic. A woman will always sacrifice herself if you give her the opportunity. It is her favourite form of self-indulgence.

ARNOLD. I never know whether you're a humorist or a cynic, father.

C.-C. I'm neither, my dear boy; I'm merely a very truthful man. But people are so unused to the truth that they're apt to mistake it for a joke or a sneer.

ARNOLD. [_Irritably._] It seems so unfair that this should happen to me.

C.-C. Keep your head, my boy, and do what I tell you.

[_LADY KITTY and ELIZABETH come in. LADY KITTY is in a gorgeous evening gown._

ELIZABETH. Where is Lord Porteous?

C.-C. He's on the terrace. He's smoking a cigar. [_Going to window._]

Hughie!

[_PORTEOUS comes in._

PORTEOUS. [_With a grunt._] Yes? Where's Mrs. Shenstone?

ELIZABETH. Oh, she had a headache. She's gone to bed.

[_When PORTEOUS comes in LADY KITTY with a very haughty air purses her lips and takes up an ill.u.s.trated paper. PORTEOUS gives her an irritated look, takes another ill.u.s.trated paper and sits himself down at the other end of the room. They are not on speaking terms._

C.-C. Arnold and I have just been down to my cottage.

ELIZABETH. I wondered where you'd gone.

C.-C. I came across an old photograph alb.u.m this afternoon. I meant to bring it along before dinner, but I forgot, so we went and fetched it.

ELIZABETH. Oh, do let me see it! I love old photographs.

[_He gives her the alb.u.m, and she, sitting down, puts it on her knees and begins to turn over the pages. He stands over her. LADY KITTY and PORTEOUS take surrept.i.tious glances at one another._

C.-C. I thought it might amuse you to see what pretty women looked like five-and-thirty years ago. That was the day of beautiful women.

ELIZABETH. Do you think they were more beautiful then than they are now?

C.-C. Oh, much. Now you see lots of pretty little things, but very few beautiful women.

ELIZABETH. Aren't their clothes funny?

C.-C. [_Pointing to a photograph._] That's Mrs. Langtry.

ELIZABETH. She has a lovely nose.

C.-C. She was the most wonderful thing you ever saw. Dowagers used to jump on chairs in order to get a good look at her when she came into a drawing-room. I was riding with her once, and we had to have the gates of the livery stable closed when she was getting on her horse because the crowd was so great.

ELIZABETH. And who's that?

C.-C. Lady Lonsdale. That's Lady Dudley.

ELIZABETH. This is an actress, isn't it?

C.-C. It is, indeed. Ellen Terry. By George! how I loved that woman!

ELIZABETH. [_With a smile._] Dear Ellen Terry!

C.-C. That's Bwabs. I never saw a smarter man in my life. And Oliver Montagu. Henry Manners with his eye-gla.s.s.

ELIZABETH. Nice-looking, isn't he? And this?

C.-C. That's Mary Anderson. I wish you could have seen her in "A Winter's Tale." Her beauty just took your breath away. And look!

There's Lady Randolph. Bernal Osborne--the wittiest man I ever knew.

ELIZABETH. I think it's too sweet. I love their absurd bustles and those tight sleeves.

C.-C. What figures they had! In those days a woman wasn't supposed to be as thin as a rail and as flat as a pancake.