ACT IV

Sitting-room in Paramore's apartments in Savile Row. The darkly respectable furniture is, so to speak, en suite with Paramore's frock coat and cuffs. Viewing the room from the front windows, the door is seen in the opposite wall near the left hand corner. Another door, a light, noiseless partition one covered with a green baize, is in the right hand wall toward the back, leading to Paramore's consulting room. The fireplace is on the left. At the nearest corner of it a couch is placed at right angles to the wall, settlewise. On the right the wall is occupied by a bookcase, further forward than the green baize door. Beyond the door is a cabinet of anatomical preparations, with a framed photograph of Rembrandt's School of Anatomy hanging on the wall above it. In front, a little to the right, a tea-table.

Paramore is seated in a round-backed chair, on castors, pouring out tea. Julia sits opposite him, with her back to the fire. He is in high spirits: she very downcast.

PARAMORE (handing her the cup he has just filled)
There! Making tea is one of the few things I consider myself able to do thoroughly well. Cake?

JULIA
No, thank you. I don't like sweet things. (She sets down the cup untasted.)

PARAMORE
Anything wrong with the tea?

JULIA
No, it's very nice.

PARAMORE
I'm afraid I'm a very bad entertainer. The fact is, I'm too professional. I only shine in consultation. I almost wish you had something the matter with you; so that you might call out my knowledge and sympathy. As it is, I can only admire you, and feel how pleasant it is to have you here.

JULIA (bitterly)
And pet me, and say pretty things to me! I wonder you don't offer me a saucer of milk at once?

PARAMORE (astonished)
Why?

JULIA
Because you seem to regard me very much as if I were a Persian cat.

PARAMORE (in strong remonstrance)
Miss Cra--

JULIA (cutting him short)
Oh, you needn't protest. I'm used to it: It's the only sort of attachment I seem always to inspire. (Ironically) You can't think how flattering it is!

PARAMORE
My dear Miss Craven, what a cynical thing to say! You! who are loved at first sight by the people in the street as you pass. Why, in the club I can tell by the faces of the men whether you have been lately in the room or not.

JULIA (shrinking fiercely)
Oh, I hate that look in their faces. Do you know that I have never had one human being care for me since I was born?

PARAMORE
That's not true, Miss Craven. Even if it were true of your father, and of Charteris, who loves you madly in spite of your dislike for him, it is not true of me.

JULIA (startled)
Who told you that about Charteris?

PARAMORE
Why, he himself.

JULIA (with deep, poignant conviction)
He cares for only one person in the world; and that is himself. There is not