ACT I - Page 2

Besides, you might have married him not because you loved him, but because you didn't love anybody else. When one is young, one marries out of mere curiosity, just to see what it's like.

GRACE
Well, since you ask me, I never was in love with Tranfield, though I only found that out when I fell in love with you. But I used to like him for being in love with me. It brought out all the good in him so much that I have wanted to be in love with some one ever since. I hope, now that I am in love with you, you will like me for it just as I liked Tranfield.

CHARTERIS
My dear, it is because I like you that I want to marry you. I could love anybody--any pretty woman, that is.

GRACE
Do you really mean that, Leonard?

CHARTERIS
Of course. Why not?

GRACE (reflecting)
Never mind why. Now tell me, is this your first love affair?

CHARTERIS (amazed at the simplicity of the question)
No, bless my soul. No--nor my second, nor my third.

GRACE
But I mean your first serious one.

CHARTERIS (with a certain hesitation)
Yes. (There is a pause. She is not convinced. He adds, with a very perceptible load on his conscience.) It is the first in which _I_ have been serious.

GRACE (searchingly)
I see. The other parties were always serious.

CHARTERIS
No, not always--heaven forbid!

GRACE
How often?

CHARTERIS
Well, once.

GRACE
Julia Craven?

CHARTERIS (recoiling)
Who told you that? (She shakes her head mysteriously, and he turns away from her moodily and adds) You had much better not have asked.

GRACE (gently)
I'm sorry, dear. (She puts out her hand and pulls softly at him to bring him near her again.)

CHARTERIS (yielding mechanically to the pull, and allowing her hand to rest on his arm, but sitting squarely without the least attempt to return the caress)
Do I feel harder to the touch than I did five minutes ago?

GRACE
What nonsense!

CHARTERIS
I feel as if my body had turned into the toughest of hickory. That is what comes of reminding me of Julia Craven. (Brooding, with his chin on his right hand and his elbow on his knee.) I have sat alone with her just as I am sitting with you--

GRACE (shrinking from him)
Just!

CHARTERIS (sitting upright and facing her steadily)
Just exactly. She has put her hands in mine, and laid her cheek against mine, and listened to me saying all sorts of silly things. (Grace, chilled to the soul, rises from the sofa and sits down on the piano stool, with her back to the keyboard.) Ah, you don't want to hear any more of the story. So much the better.

GRACE (deeply hurt, but controlling herself)
When did you break it off?

CHARTERIS (guiltily)
Break it off?

GRACE (firmly)
Yes, break it off.

CHARTERIS
Well,