"Copy" : A Dialogue - Page 2

out a Danish translation of
_The Idol's Feet_; and the editor of the _Semaphore_ wants a new
serial--I think that's all; except that _Woman's Sphere_ and _The
Droplight_ ask for interviews--with photographs--

_Mrs. Dale_. The same old story! I'm so toed of it all. _(To
herself, in an undertone.)_ But how should I feel if it all stopped?
_(The servant brings in a card.)_

_Mrs. Dale (reading it)_. Is it possible? Paul Ventnor? _(To the
servant.)_ Show Mr. Ventnor up. _(To herself.)_ Paul Ventnor!

_Hilda (breathless)_. Oh, Mrs. Dale--_the_ Mr. Ventnor?

_Mrs. Dale (smiling)_. I fancy there's only one.

_Hilda_. The great, great poet? _(Irresolute.)_ No, I don't
dare--

_Mrs. Dale (with a tinge of impatience)_. What?

_Hilda (fervently)_. Ask you--if I might--oh, here in this corner,
where he can't possibly notice me--stay just a moment? Just to see him come
in? To see the meeting between you--the greatest novelist and the greatest
poet of the age? Oh, it's too much to ask! It's an historic moment.

_Mrs. Dale_. Why, I suppose it is. I hadn't thought of it in that
light. Well _(smiling)_, for the diary--

_Hilda_. Oh, thank you, _thank you_! I'll be off the very instant
I've heard him speak.

_Mrs. Dale_. The very instant, mind. _(She rises, looks at herself
in the glass, smooths her hair, sits down again, and rattles the
tea-caddy.)_ Isn't the room very warm?--_(She looks over at her
portrait.)_ I've grown stouter since that was painted--. You'll make a
fortune out of that diary, Hilda--

_Hilda (modestly)_. Four publishers have applied to me already--

_The Servant (announces)_. Mr. Paul Ventnor.

_(Tall, nearing fifty, with an incipient stoutness buttoned into a
masterly frock-coat, Ventnor drops his glass and advances vaguely, with a
short-sighted stare.)_

_Ventnor_. Mrs. Dale?

_Mrs. Dale_. My dear friend! This is kind. _(She looks over her
shoulder at Hilda, mho vanishes through the door to the left.)_ The
papers announced your arrival, but I hardly hoped--

_Ventnor (whose short-sighted stare is seen to conceal a deeper
embarrassment)_. You hadn't forgotten me, then?

_Mrs. Dale_. Delicious! Do _you_ forget that you're public
property?

_Ventnor_. Forgotten, I mean, that we were old friends?

_Mrs. Dale_. Such old friends! May I remind you that it's nearly
twenty years since we've met? Or do you find cold reminiscences
indigestible?

_Ventnor_. On the contrary, I've come to ask you for a dish of
them--we'll warm them up together. You're my first visit.

_Mrs. Dale_. How perfect of you! So few men visit their women friends
in chronological order; or at least they generally do it