Act I

It is eight o'clock in the evening. The curtains are drawn
and the lamps lighted in the drawing room of Her flat in
Cromwell Road. Her lover, a beautiful youth of eighteen, in
evening dress and cape, with a bunch of flowers and an opera hat
in his hands, comes in alone. The door is near the corner; and as
he appears in the doorway, he has the fireplace on the nearest
wall to his right, and the grand piano along the opposite wall to
his left. Near the fireplace a small ornamental table has on it a
hand mirror, a fan, a pair of long white gloves, and a little
white woollen cloud to wrap a woman's head in. On the other side
of the room, near the piano, is a broad, square, softly up-
holstered stool. The room is furnished in the most approved
South Kensington fashion: that is, it is as like a show room as
possible, and is intended to demonstrate the racial position and
spending powers of its owners, and not in the least to make them
comfortable.

He is, be it repeated, a very beautiful youth, moving as in a
dream, walking as on air. He puts his flowers down carefully on
the table beside the fan; takes off his cape, and, as there is no
room on the table for it, takes it to the piano; puts his hat on
the cape; crosses to the hearth; looks at his watch; puts it up
again; notices the things on the table; lights up as if he saw
heaven opening before him; goes to the table and takes the cloud
in both hands, nestling his nose into its softness and kissing
it; kisses the gloves one after another; kisses the fan: gasps a
long shuddering sigh of ecstasy; sits down on the stool and
presses his hands to his eyes to shut out reality and dream a
little; takes his hands down and shakes his head with a little
smile of rebuke for his folly; catches sight of a speck of dust
on his shoes and hastily and carefully brushes it off with his
handkerchief; rises and takes the hand mirror from the table to
make sure of his tie with the gravest anxiety; and is looking at
his watch again when She comes in, much flustered. As she is
dressed for the theatre; has spoilt, petted ways; and wears many
diamonds, she has an air of being a young and beautiful woman;
but as a matter of hard fact, she is, dress and pretensions
apart, a very ordinary South Kensington female of about 37,
hopelessly inferior in physical and spiritual distinction to the
beautiful youth, who hastily puts down the mirror as she enters.

HE [kissing her hand] At last!

SHE. Henry: something dreadful has happened.

HE. What's the matter?

SHE. I have lost your poems.

HE. They were unworthy of you. I will write you some more.

SHE. No, thank you. Never any more poems for me. Oh, how could I
have been so mad! so rash! so