Act IV - Page 2

blood-poisoning
I ever saw. It's too late now to do anything. He'd die under the
anaesthetic.

B. B. [offended] Killed! Really, Walpole, if your monomania were
not well known, I should take such an expession very seriously.

SIR PATRICK. Come come! When youve both killed as many people as
I have in my time youll feel humble enough about it. Come and
look at him, Colly.

Ridgeon and Sir Patrick go into the inner room.

WALPOLE. I apologize, B. B. But it's blood-poisoning.

B. B. [recovering his irresistible good nature] My dear Walpole,
everything is blood-poisoning. But upon my soul, I shall not use
any of that stuff of Ridgeon's again. What made me so sensitive
about what you said just now is that, strictly between ourselves,
Ridgeon cooked our young friend's goose.

Jennifer, worried and distressed, but always gentle, comes
between them from the inner room. She wears a nurse's apron.

MRS. DUBEDAT. Sir Ralph: what am I to do? That man who insisted
on seeing me, and sent in word that business was important to
Louis, is a newspaper man. A paragraph appeared in the paper this
morning saying that Louis is seriously ill; and this man wants to
interview him about it. How can people be so brutally callous?

WALPOLE [moving vengefully towards the door] You just leave me to
deal with him!

MRS DUBEDAT [stopping him] But Louis insists on seeing him: he
almost began to cry about it. And he says he cant bear his room
any longer. He says he wants to [she struggles with a sob]--to
die in his studio. Sir Patrick says let him have his way: it can
do no harm. What shall we do?

B B. [encouragingly] Why, follow Sir Patrick's excellent advice,
of course. As he says, it can do him no harm; and it will no
doubt do him good--a great deal of good. He will be much the
better for it.

MRS DUBEDAT [a little cheered] Will you bring the man up here, Mr
Walpole, and tell him that he may see Louis, but that he mustnt
exhaust him by talking? [Walpole nods and goes out by the outer
door]. Sir Ralph, dont be angry with me; but Louis will die if he
stays here. I must take him to Cornwall. He will recover there.

B. B. [brightening wonderfully, as if Dubedat were already saved]
Cornwall! The very place for him! Wonderful for the lungs. Stupid
of me not to think of it before. You are his best physician after
all, dear lady. An inspiration! Cornwall: of course, yes, yes,
yes.

MRS DUBEDAT [comforted and touched] You are so kind, Sir Ralph.
But dont give me much or I shall cry; and Louis cant bear that.

B. B. [gently putting his protecting arm round her shoulders]
Then let us come back to him and help to carry him in. Cornwall!
of course, of course. The