Act I - Page 2

imprudent!

HE. Thank Heaven for your madness, your rashness, your
imprudence!

SHE [impatiently] Oh, be sensible, Henry. Can't you see what a
terrible thing this is for me? Suppose anybody finds these poems!
what will they think?

HE. They will think that a man once loved a woman more devotedly
than ever man loved woman before. But they will not know what man
it was.

SHE. What good is that to me if everybody will know what woman it
was?

HE. But how will they know?

SHE. How will they know! Why, my name is all over them: my silly,
unhappy name. Oh, if I had only been christened Mary Jane, or
Gladys Muriel, or Beatrice, or Francesca, or Guinevere, or
something quite common! But Aurora! Aurora! I'm the only Aurora
in London; and everybody knows it. I believe I'm the only Aurora
in the world. And it's so horribly easy to rhyme to it! Oh,
Henry, why didn't you try to restrain your feelings a little in
common consideration for me? Why didn't you write with some
little reserve?

HE. Write poems to you with reserve! You ask me that!

SHE [with perfunctory tenderness] Yes, dear, of course it was
very nice of you; and I know it was my own fault as much as
yours. I ought to have noticed that your verses ought never to
have been addressed to a married woman.

HE. Ah, how I wish they had been addressed to an unmarried woman!
how I wish they had!

SHE. Indeed you have no right to wish anything of the sort. They
are quite unfit for anybody but a married woman. That's just the
difficulty. What will my sisters-in-law think of them?

HE [painfully jarred] Have you got sisters-in-law?

SHE. Yes, of course I have. Do you suppose I am an angel?

HE [biting his lips] I do. Heaven help me, I do--or I did--or [he
almost chokes a sob].

SHE [softening and putting her hand caressingly on his shoulder]
Listen to me, dear. It's very nice of you to live with me in a
dream, and to love me, and so on; but I can't help my husband
having disagreeable relatives, can I?

HE [brightening up] Ah, of course they are your husband's
relatives: I forgot that. Forgive me, Aurora. [He takes her hand
from his shoulder and kisses it. She sits down on the stool. He
remains near the table, with his back to it, smiling fatuously
down at her].

SHE. The fact is, Teddy's got nothing but relatives. He has eight
sisters and six half-sisters, and ever so many brothers--but I
don't mind his brothers. Now if you only knew the least little
thing about the world, Henry, you'd know that in a large family,
though the sisters quarrel with one another like mad all the
time, yet let one of the brothers marry, and they all turn on
their