Act IV - Page 2

ten
minutes chat after tea. [He murmurs]. No use groaning: I'm inexorable.
[He takes the opposite seat disconsolately]. Pass that cigar box, will
you?

FRANK [pushing the cigar box across] Nasty womanly habit. Nice men don't
do it any longer.

VIVIE. Yes: they object to the smell in the office; and we've had to take
to cigarets. See! [She opens the box and takes out a cigaret, which she
lights. She offers him one; but he shakes his head with a wry face. She
settles herself comfortably in her chair, smoking]. Go ahead.

FRANK. Well, I want to know what you've done--what arrangements you've
made.

VIVIE. Everything was settled twenty minutes after I arrived here.
Honoria has found the business too much for her this year; and she was
on the point of sending for me and proposing a partnership when I walked
in and told her I hadn't a farthing in the world. So I installed myself
and packed her off for a fortnight's holiday. What happened at Haslemere
when I left?

FRANK. Nothing at all. I said youd gone to town on particular business.

VIVIE. Well?

FRANK. Well, either they were too flabbergasted to say anything, or else
Crofts had prepared your mother. Anyhow, she didn't say anything; and
Crofts didn't say anything; and Praddy only stared. After tea they got up
and went; and I've not seen them since.

VIVIE [nodding placidly with one eye on a wreath of smoke] Thats all
right.

FRANK [looking round disparagingly] Do you intend to stick in this
confounded place?

VIVIE [blowing the wreath decisively away, and sitting straight up] Yes.
These two days have given me back all my strength and self-possession. I
will never take a holiday again as long as I live.

FRANK [with a very wry face] Mps! You look quite happy. And as hard as
nails.

VIVIE [grimly] Well for me that I am!

FRANK [rising] Look here, Viv: we must have an explanation. We parted
the other day under a complete misunderstanding. [He sits on the table,
close to her].

VIVIE [putting away the cigaret] Well: clear it up.

FRANK. You remember what Crofts said.

VIVIE. Yes.

FRANK. That revelation was supposed to bring about a complete change in
the nature of our feeling for one another. It placed us on the footing
of brother and sister.

VIVIE. Yes.

FRANK. Have you ever had a brother?

VIVIE. No.

FRANK. Then you don't know what being brother and sister feels like? Now
I have lots of sisters; and the fraternal feeling is quite familiar to
me. I assure you my feeling for you is not the least in the world like
it. The girls will go _their_ way; I will go mine; and we shan't care
if we never see one another again. Thats